“Stealing, of course, is a crime, and a very impolite thing to do. But like most impolite things, it is excusable under certain circumstances. Stealing is not excusable if, for instance, you are in a workshop and you decide that the Silmarils would look better in your crown, and you simply grab the Silmarils and take them there. But if you were very, very hungry, and you had no way of obtaining money, it would be excusable to grab the Silmarils, take them to your fortress, and eat them.”
“Finrod was an Arafinwean, a word which here means ‘lithe blonde twink who, for some reason, everybody in the entire world except for Celegorm seems to underestimate.’
Curufin was smitten, a word which here means ‘not Celegorm.’”
“Now, “in the dark” is a term meaning that one is not aware of something that is going on, and has very little to do with physical light, or the lack of such a thing. If it is a bright sunny day and you are sitting in a park and you have no idea that buried beneath your picnic spot is a treasure chest then you are in the dark not in the dark, and if it is the dead of night and you are traipsing through the woods and you are entirely aware that you are being followed by a troupe of ballerinas then you are not in the dark in the dark, and if you are sitting at your kitchen table working and you are so intent on your work that you do not even realize night has fallen then you are in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, until you look up and find yourself no longer in the dark about being in the dark in the dark. And immediately after Melkor extinguished the Trees, all of Valinor found itself very comprehensively in the dark.“
“Fingolfin was an optimist, a word which here means ‘attempting to make amends with his half-brother who has just threatened him with a sword.’
Fingolfin was an optimist, a word which here means ‘willing to trust his half-brother to bring him across an ocean in the boats they have just stolen together.’
Fingolfin was an optimist, a word which here means ‘about to cross an ice bridge, having previously turned back because such a thing was clearly impossible.’
Fingolfin was an optimist, a word which here means ‘about to charge an evil god and stab him with a sword.’
Fingolfin was an optimist, a word which here means ‘dead.’”
Can we please talk about how the most criminally underrated comedic aspect of the legendarium is the length of Elros’ kingship. Like bro caused the funniest succession crisis known to mankind when he died because his son, who was almost 400, abdicated on the spot because he was too old and passed the kingship to his own son right.
Which implies that abdication due to age was absolutely a possibility. An option, in fact. One which Elros clearly didn’t take up. Why? Because in my book, motherfucker was having way too much fun. Bro watched his son start to hobble around the place and was like ‘yeah but I like fucking and dining and wining and hunting, I’m keeping the crown, sucks to be you, major loser’. He gives me young Robert Baratheon vibes right. I know my beloved himbo was drinking to excess every night and streaking nude through the courtyards with his hunting buddies while Elrond learned to play depressing tunes on the harp and pulp herbs or whatever the fuck he was doing back in Middle Earth. I know Elros laughed like 20 times a day. I know you could hear him from four streets away. I know he had like 30 illegitimate children because his wife probably didn’t live even half as long as him. At least 30. I know his sneeze was audible from the moon.
Anyway just imagine being Vardamir and being like ‘dad is it my turn for the crown now?’ every fifty years and your dad just lifting a finger and going ‘no 😇☝🏻’. And you have to tell yourself not to take offence at this because your dad grew up in like the worst time to grow up ever and had the most traumatic childhood and was practically orphaned by six. Like of course he wants to spend his dying days drinking and dancing right. Unfortunately his dying days last 400 years long. I tell you this, in my mind, the only reason why the Númenoreans canonically have a tradition of abdicating a few years before their death is because final-stage Elros went down in history as the most irritating monarch to exist.
Because even though his children and some other descendents lived to 3/400 etc, even the longest reigning ones only spent like 150 years on the throne at most. Not so with Elros. Elros’ ass was parked firmly on the throne for four hundred years straight. And Númenor is canonically a swift-advancing society right. Four hundred years is a wacky amount of time. In terms of technological advancement at least. Imagine Queen Elizabeth the First was still kicking around on the throne right now. Imagine her managing Brexit and having to do a TikTok dance to get tourists into Buckingham Palace. Imagine the President was still George Washington. Imagine George Washington having to deal with ChatGPT and taking publicity photos with Beyoncé. Imagine Emperor Jahangir encountering a Big Mac.
And it’s even funnier with Elros because this guy wasn’t just raised by elves, he was raised by—due to kidnap-adoption circumstance—the fucking Noldor of all elves. Not just any Noldor but a son of Fëanor, freshly departed from the courtly halls of Aman. They invented the world ‘nostalgia’ when the guy who wrote the dictionary took one look at Maglor Fëanorian. What’s more, he grew up in what was the most devastating war the world had ever seen. So I am sure that Elros’ views are somewhat archaic at best. He makes your extremely conservative grandpa sound like Che Guevera.
Oh, and elves are technically hardier etc, so any time there’s a shortage in Númenor this guy is literally out here saying ‘let them eat cake’ and genuinely means it well, because he, Elros Tar-Minyatur, has on multiple occasions survived by eating one small bite of cake a day. I just know that in the last fifty years of his reign, he blanket vetoed every single workplace hazard control measure because he thinks ‘health and safety has gone mad’. He doesn’t see the point of paving a road. He tries to outlaw whatever the Númenorean version of a miniskirt is and his daughter has to literally threaten him out of it. The whole ‘dancing bears’ thing happened because the wrong people caught Elros and his hunting buddies having yet another post-hunt cock measuring competition and afterparty at the ripe young age of 250 and the royal PR team had to come up with something. And does his language shift and adapt to the needs of society? Absolutely not. In his last decade, 80% of his vocabulary is considered a slur.
And the cherry on this cake? The cherry on this cake is the fact that, once again canonically, my guy Elros was pretty young and spry until he was literally dying. And I assume that meant he also looked pretty young and spry because there’s no way for a human body to look 500 years old. So imagine sitting in at the royal council trying to, idk, bring forth the idea of indoor plumbing and the crankiest old man stands up and gives a speech about how in HIS day people just shat in a pot under the bed and emptied it the next day and HE’S five hundred years old so CLEARLY it’s not going to kill people to not have a sewage system. “I pissed in a pot the day I was born and I pissed in a pot this morning, and I’ll piss in a pot on my deathday” and you can’t even go ‘okay grandpa time for bed’ and wheel him out. Because he’s 6’4 and built like a brick shithouse and has the smoothest skin you have ever seen. ‘Grandpa’ would put you in a fucking headlock if you tried to wheel him to bed. ‘Grandpa’ is your king.
Also the fact that he just randomly decided to die at 500. My personal headcanon here is that that was the morning he woke up with his first hangover ever. He has spent 400 years drinking and fucking and eating enough for ten people and one fine morning he wakes up with a mildly dry mouth and a slight headache. Motherfucker marches off to his son’s room, throws the door open, fucking yeets the crown onto his head, and promptly lays down to die because a world in which he, Elros Tar-Minyatur, is subject to a mild hangover, is not a world which he, Elros Tar-Minyatur, wishes to occupy.
Think about that. The Peredhel line, mired in tragedy, sunk neck deep in mortal consequences and political suicides and passive endurance. And this one guy, who one hundred percent had a fuckchair that he used to his dying day, who chose to die when he did purely because his life was fucking great and he wanted to go out on a high.
What a hopeful mythos!!!
What I’m trying to say here is, we have so much wonderful fiction about Elros the Menace as a child, yet not nearly enough conceptions of Elros the Menace as an adult. I know that the entirety of the palace in Númenor tried to bell him like a cat by the time he reached 450. His ministers would draw straws every year to see which one of them had to crawl up to the palace and beg him to abdicate. And each time, he would say ‘lol no’ except he wouldn’t even do that, he would make his pet monkey do it. Because he has a small pet Capuchin monkey to which he taught sign language. Because he’s a peacetime king and is 499 years old and he was born in a war and if he wants a pet monkey to speak for him, then by god will a pet monkey speak for him so you better fucking address Elros Tar-Minyatur’s pet monkey as your royal highness or get executed for treason at dawn.
Maglor was actually the first of his brothers to have some potential and talent in smithing, however his passion for singing exceeded that more and so to Feanor’s disappointment he never got into smithing
With one big exception, horseshoes. Our favorite horse girl was absolutely at the forefront of horseshoe evolution from leather to iron to steel etc etc. And he 100 percent takes care of his own horse’s grooming, including their hooves, which includes custom forging their shoes each and every time.
Fingolfin looks like Feanor. He knows this. Has always known this.
(He wonders, absently, whether he should be using that past tense, now that his brother is gone.)
He looks (looked?) like his brother. It was one reason that Feanor hated him so much more than Finarfin.
Still, it should not sting his heart so much. Should not hurt as much as it does, when the eldest of his nephews wakes on his sickbed and calls him ‘Atya’.
Curufin wanders amidst the party and does his best not to look like he’s losing his mind. Despite being held in Tirion, most of the guests - and the hosts - are Vanyar, which means the conversations are less craft-centered and more focused on the Valar or Maiar, everyone sharing gossip on the latest trouble Mithrandir has caused, or if Curumo’s spirit has been pardoned yet, or the very loud fight between Oromë and Yvanna which nearly caused an earthquake. Ridiculously boring topics for conversation, but Curufin bares it all with a polite smile.
He may be the only Fëanorian willing to brave court politics in this new age, but he’s not the only Finwëan there. Galadriel, splendid in gold and white, is also in attendance. Curufin does his best to avoid her - the last thing his family needs is for him to cause trouble - but when he tries to walk by she reaches out and grabs him.
“What excellent timing, cousin.” Galadriel’s fingers are tight on his forearm, and she all but yanks him to her side. “Join us for a moment.”
Curufin bites back the urge to snap at her. He does not know what game she is playing, smiling at him as though they are friends, but that he wants no part of it. “I would not want to intrude on your conversation,” he says, trying to pull away, but her grip only tightens.
“Not at all,” says Galadriel, in a cheerfully bright tone that does not match the ice in her eyes. “You see, we were just talking about Tylepë.”
“Oh?” That catches Curufin's attention. His son, newly reembodied, currently rests in Lórien. Sauron had damaged him far beyond what even Nienna could repair, and so it is up to Estë to continue the long work of healing his soul.
“Aiwener has some opinions about his return to life,” continues Galadriel, gesturing at the other elf. “I think you’d find them fascinating.”
“I was only voicing a concern,” says Aiwener. Curufin has never seen him before and sizes him up quickly. The other elf is young, Vanyarian from his style of dressing, and clearly a fool in how he does not seem to recognize who Curufin is.
“Really?” Curufin’s smile sharpens. “Do share.”
“It is only,” says Aiwener, “that he was held captive by the Enemy for so long and in such a brutal capacity. Sauron did all he could to break into his mind. How do we know that such evil does not still linger within him, waiting to take root and destroy our blessed land? Even a single seed of Sauron’s malice could blossom into terrible fruit if left unchecked. Would it not be better for the Valar to unravel his soul entirely?”
“You would erase him?” Curufin’s voice matches Galadriel’s now: false cheer that barely masks the fire beginning to burn beneath his tongue.
“I would sacrifice him for the greater good, yes,” says Aiwener. He frowns, unhappy with Curufin’s clear dislike of the idea. “You don’t agree?”
“Not at all,” says Curufin. “You, cousin?”
“I disagree with the idea as well,” she says.
Curufin is not surprised. Celebrimbor has always been the one Fëanorian that Galadriel has always loved, even before everything between their families broke so disastrously. And why wouldn’t he be? Who could not love Celebrimbor, brilliant and brave and better than all the rest of them put together?
But Aiwener does not understand. “I can see why Lady Artanis would be against such a thing, for her wide heart and merciful nature are well known. But why - ” he turns to Curufin “- do you care if he lives or fades to nothing?”
“I am his father,” says Curufin, and he lets some of the fire loose upon that last word. Let’s his eyes blaze as he glares back at this elf who would dare threaten his child.
Aiwener’s mouth opens and closes like a fish gasping for air before managing to stumble out “I see my friend excuse me.” He all but runs away from them, and it is only then that Galadriel releases Curufin’s arm.
“Ignorant fool,” she mutters. A server passes by them and she snags two glasses of white wine.
“Indeed,” says Curufin, accepting one of the glasses from her. “I’m surprised he did not know who I was.”
Galadriel scoffs. “Aiwener is young and extremely ignorant of history. Still, that does not stop him from being full of fears.”
“And judgement.” Curufin narrows his eyes. Aiwener has become lost in the crowd, but it wouldn’t be hard to find out more information about him. “Should I be worried?”
“Perhaps,” says Galadriel. She stares down into her wine as though it is her scrying mirror. “He is not the only one to have shared such an idea, only the most vocal. I have heard whispers of a petition collecting support for the idea.”
The thought of losing his son again, in an even worse and final way, makes Curufin’s blood boil. “Your father would not accept such a thing.”
“He wouldn’t,” says Galadriel, “but the petition is not for him.”
“Manwë.” Damn them all! Would Celebrimbor never be allowed peace? Years of courage and sacrifice and being good, all counted for nothing due to a few paranoid, ignorant fools. “We cannot allow that to happen.”
“No,” agrees Galadriel, “we cannot.”
She raises her glass and Curufin touches his against it. Seals their unlikely alliance with that sharp, bright sound.
“Well then, cousin,” he says, “what do you suggest we do first?”
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