Legendarium [ Tolkien One-Shots ]

The Shadow Comes

His father had told him stories of the Elder Days, when the world was bright and Two Trees showered light across all the lands of the Eldar and Ainur. He’d loved those stories. His father then told of the betrayal of the Valar, and the flight of the Noldor. Celebrimbor had believed those stories too, but had not loved them. But then his father had died, and he’d witnessed the Great Host, the coming of Eonwe and the Ainur and the Vanyar. He held no more hatred in his heart for the beings the Edain called gods. They had set the First Born free.

So when Annatar had come, an emissary of those great beings, he had readily accepted the help. Eregion was prospering, a haven for Noldor left behind after the War of Wrath. The holly trees, the great towers, the gardens full of life, all of them incapable of matching the greatest triumph, the forges of Eregion.

But now, as Celebrimbor stood alone, his elven guard slaughtered outside the room he bunkered in, hatred for the Ainur once more crept into his heart. This time, the rage was but for one. Sauron, war-dog of Morgoth, had ruined all he held dear.

He drew his sword, crafted in ages past by Feanor, his grandfather. Wielded by Curufin his father. Blessed by Eonwe at their parting, after the War of Wrath came to a close. For a split second, as the doors rocked and creaked on their hinges with each crashing blow, he wondered as he often had what became of his uncles. Maglor and Maedhros, his last remaining relatives, had not been seen in nearly an age. Celebrimbor couldn’t help but think they would’ve been able to save the elves if they had been there.

But Celebrimbor, named Ring-maker by his subjects, had only brought death upon the Eldar. Glad that the three elven rings had been taken far away, he hoped that Galadriel and Gil-Galad would be able to stave off the coming storm. For he himself had glimpsed their doom, their fading, as he put on Vilya. For the shadow had come for the elves again, and there would be no Great Host to save them this time.

He adjusted his circlet and readjusted his sword grip. With a final, deafening bang, the doors crashed open and orcs flooded the room. The elf lord slaughtered them one by one, as they had done to his friends, his peers, his subjects. The shadows had razed Eregion, but Celebrimbor did not give up. Not until Sauron himself gripped his throat, the harbinger of the death of the elves, did he stop his fight.

The smile that adorned Sauron’s fair face became etched into his memory forever after. Even unto the moment of his death, he knew the elves were doomed. For the Valar had abandoned them in that hour of need. Yet he also knew that the Eldar, the First Born, would fight to the bitter end for their freedom, as they had done in ages past.