"Taking the Bruise" by Himring
Apr. 1st, 2013 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hhimring posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
b2memB2MeM Challenge: Wildcard: Go where the stars are strange. Wildcard: Final Challenge: Dwimordene's additional element: She just smiled and laughed at me and took her bruise back again.
Format: ficlet (c.1100 words)
Genre: character study, family, angst
Rating: Teens
Warnings: non-graphic canon torture and canon death
Characters: Celebrian, Finrod Felagund
Pairings: Celebrian/Elrond (background)
Summary: Celebrian makes up her mind to sail; her arrival in Valinor.
Note: I rarely write Third Age, so the stars are strange there for me; this is also my first story with Celebrian as protagonist. I don't know how well you will think I did on the additional prompt...
Celebrian is having a good day. And so, reluctantly persuaded by her brave smiles, her carers permit her to remain alone by herself on the terrace, propped up in a comfortable chair, swathed in blankets. She blinks warily in the watery autumn sunshine and looks out over bare thorny rose beds.
Celebrian is having a good day. The orchestra of fear and pain that plays at all times in her mind and on her body today plays a little more softly; today she can actually hear herself think above the shrilling of the pipes and the pounding of the kettle drums.
Celebrian is having a good day and so it is time—without any well-meaning well-wishers talking at her, assuring her again and again that she will soon be all right again, hollow assurances that on bad days she is only too willing to cling to—it is time today to face a few hard truths: she has reached the point at which she is liable to inflict more damage on her family by staying with them than by leaving them.
She considers them each in turn—her children, her husband, her parents—and the thought of them is bitter. What has happened to her is warping their lives. They have revolved around her, attempting to lend all kinds of aid and support within their power and seeing their best efforts evaporate until her state of health has become like the centre of a black whirlpool, gradually sucking them in after her.
Mummy is trying to get well, Arwen. Mummy is trying really, really hard to get well. And her family are trying really hard to believe it.
They cannot understand, not even Elrond—maybe Elrond even less than the others, because he is so locked in his continual struggle with the ways her body and her mind are failing her, with each individual symptom, that he seldom finds the space to breathe, let alone step back and consider the larger picture. Elrond is a healer and she is refusing to heal. His growing self-doubt is harder to bear, in the long term, than those few fleeting moments when he almost seems to blame her.
They cannot understand and she cannot explain, for she does not understand either. How can all that loving care fail to make up for… But here that train of thought comes to a jarring halt.
Celebrian, who is having a good day, looks out over thorny rose beds and considers Valinor. It is not to her, as to her mother, a home she once left, a home to return to. No sea birds have ever called to her, promising her enduring bliss beyond the horizon. She had few dreams beyond Middle-earth before disaster struck, and Valinor to her means exile, a bleak alternative. But it may offer release from her daily round of horrors.
Elrond thinks so. In moments of despair, he talks of Irmo and Este, of Lorien. Because his healing powers descend from Melian and because Melian hails from Lorien, he believes that they would succeed where he failed.
Celebrian is less sure of this. What she remembers most clearly about the Gardens of Lorien from her history lessons is that Miriel went there and never came back. And if even her family cannot comprehend how those brief days of capture could shatter her beyond repair, what can the denizens of the Blessed Realm know of that?
Except for one. The thought comes unbidden and surprises her. What Valar and Maiar might understand of her plight seems uncertain at best but there dwells one in Tirion who knows what she went through because he went through it himself: Finrod Felagund, her mother’s brother, who died in captivity in Tol-in-Gaurhoth and returned to the living, they say, to walk beside his father in Aman.
He knows what she went through but what would he think of her, the great Felagund? For he suffered his captivity because he ventured on the greatest and most dangerous of quests, she was merely waylaid on what should have been a safe journey. He fought a great duel with Sauron; she had her glaive twisted out of her hands early in the fight. He withstood torture to defend his companion’s secrets; her torturers did not have the wit to ask any questions. He died to rescue Beren; she was rescued by others. And then I failed to be worth rescuing.
‘No’, she says firmly. ‘I’m going to Valinor to see my uncle Finrod Felagund.’
And she insists on that thought with all her might. It lends her a sense of purpose. It is better than merely running away.
She looks out over the rose beds, over the whole valley of Imladris, and touches the green stone on her breast.
‘I did help to make you bloom, for a while’, she says to the valley.
The stone is for Arwen. She will give it to her mother to keep it for her and also ask her to keep an eye on Arwen. Elrond does not know much about handling girls; Arwen can twist him around her little finger.
And so her plans are laid.
***
But the next day is a bad day, and her carefully made resolutions and plans are forgotten. The maelstrom has her again. There is still much anguish to come, many doubts, much toing-and-froing, before Celebrian finally boards the ship at the Grey Havens, deserting her post. By then, she barely remembers that lie she told herself about her uncle—there are so many lies she told herself and others at various times.
And yet when the ship approaches the harbour, he is there, waiting for her. Clinging to the gunwale, she sees Finrod and recognizes him instantly—oddly enough because he is the only one among the crowd on the quay who seems furious, hopping mad, incandescent with rage. In all the portraits of him she has seen he looked noble and serene but maybe she has picked up on subtle hints of temper in her mother’s tales.
She totters pathetically down the gangway on the arm of a sailor and asks him shyly—she did not use to be shy but that was before she lost all sense of worth and purpose: ‘Are you expecting me?’
‘Of course’, he growls. ‘You called me, didn’t you? Come along!’
‘You’ll have to slow down’, she says, immediately. ‘I can’t walk that fast.’
‘Not yet’, he says and wraps his right arm around her waist so that he is supporting most of her weight. ‘But we’ve only just begun.’
Format: ficlet (c.1100 words)
Genre: character study, family, angst
Rating: Teens
Warnings: non-graphic canon torture and canon death
Characters: Celebrian, Finrod Felagund
Pairings: Celebrian/Elrond (background)
Summary: Celebrian makes up her mind to sail; her arrival in Valinor.
Note: I rarely write Third Age, so the stars are strange there for me; this is also my first story with Celebrian as protagonist. I don't know how well you will think I did on the additional prompt...
Celebrian is having a good day. And so, reluctantly persuaded by her brave smiles, her carers permit her to remain alone by herself on the terrace, propped up in a comfortable chair, swathed in blankets. She blinks warily in the watery autumn sunshine and looks out over bare thorny rose beds.
Celebrian is having a good day. The orchestra of fear and pain that plays at all times in her mind and on her body today plays a little more softly; today she can actually hear herself think above the shrilling of the pipes and the pounding of the kettle drums.
Celebrian is having a good day and so it is time—without any well-meaning well-wishers talking at her, assuring her again and again that she will soon be all right again, hollow assurances that on bad days she is only too willing to cling to—it is time today to face a few hard truths: she has reached the point at which she is liable to inflict more damage on her family by staying with them than by leaving them.
She considers them each in turn—her children, her husband, her parents—and the thought of them is bitter. What has happened to her is warping their lives. They have revolved around her, attempting to lend all kinds of aid and support within their power and seeing their best efforts evaporate until her state of health has become like the centre of a black whirlpool, gradually sucking them in after her.
Mummy is trying to get well, Arwen. Mummy is trying really, really hard to get well. And her family are trying really hard to believe it.
They cannot understand, not even Elrond—maybe Elrond even less than the others, because he is so locked in his continual struggle with the ways her body and her mind are failing her, with each individual symptom, that he seldom finds the space to breathe, let alone step back and consider the larger picture. Elrond is a healer and she is refusing to heal. His growing self-doubt is harder to bear, in the long term, than those few fleeting moments when he almost seems to blame her.
They cannot understand and she cannot explain, for she does not understand either. How can all that loving care fail to make up for… But here that train of thought comes to a jarring halt.
Celebrian, who is having a good day, looks out over thorny rose beds and considers Valinor. It is not to her, as to her mother, a home she once left, a home to return to. No sea birds have ever called to her, promising her enduring bliss beyond the horizon. She had few dreams beyond Middle-earth before disaster struck, and Valinor to her means exile, a bleak alternative. But it may offer release from her daily round of horrors.
Elrond thinks so. In moments of despair, he talks of Irmo and Este, of Lorien. Because his healing powers descend from Melian and because Melian hails from Lorien, he believes that they would succeed where he failed.
Celebrian is less sure of this. What she remembers most clearly about the Gardens of Lorien from her history lessons is that Miriel went there and never came back. And if even her family cannot comprehend how those brief days of capture could shatter her beyond repair, what can the denizens of the Blessed Realm know of that?
Except for one. The thought comes unbidden and surprises her. What Valar and Maiar might understand of her plight seems uncertain at best but there dwells one in Tirion who knows what she went through because he went through it himself: Finrod Felagund, her mother’s brother, who died in captivity in Tol-in-Gaurhoth and returned to the living, they say, to walk beside his father in Aman.
He knows what she went through but what would he think of her, the great Felagund? For he suffered his captivity because he ventured on the greatest and most dangerous of quests, she was merely waylaid on what should have been a safe journey. He fought a great duel with Sauron; she had her glaive twisted out of her hands early in the fight. He withstood torture to defend his companion’s secrets; her torturers did not have the wit to ask any questions. He died to rescue Beren; she was rescued by others. And then I failed to be worth rescuing.
‘No’, she says firmly. ‘I’m going to Valinor to see my uncle Finrod Felagund.’
And she insists on that thought with all her might. It lends her a sense of purpose. It is better than merely running away.
She looks out over the rose beds, over the whole valley of Imladris, and touches the green stone on her breast.
‘I did help to make you bloom, for a while’, she says to the valley.
The stone is for Arwen. She will give it to her mother to keep it for her and also ask her to keep an eye on Arwen. Elrond does not know much about handling girls; Arwen can twist him around her little finger.
And so her plans are laid.
***
But the next day is a bad day, and her carefully made resolutions and plans are forgotten. The maelstrom has her again. There is still much anguish to come, many doubts, much toing-and-froing, before Celebrian finally boards the ship at the Grey Havens, deserting her post. By then, she barely remembers that lie she told herself about her uncle—there are so many lies she told herself and others at various times.
And yet when the ship approaches the harbour, he is there, waiting for her. Clinging to the gunwale, she sees Finrod and recognizes him instantly—oddly enough because he is the only one among the crowd on the quay who seems furious, hopping mad, incandescent with rage. In all the portraits of him she has seen he looked noble and serene but maybe she has picked up on subtle hints of temper in her mother’s tales.
She totters pathetically down the gangway on the arm of a sailor and asks him shyly—she did not use to be shy but that was before she lost all sense of worth and purpose: ‘Are you expecting me?’
‘Of course’, he growls. ‘You called me, didn’t you? Come along!’
‘You’ll have to slow down’, she says, immediately. ‘I can’t walk that fast.’
‘Not yet’, he says and wraps his right arm around her waist so that he is supporting most of her weight. ‘But we’ve only just begun.’
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no subject
Date: 2013-04-01 08:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-05 08:40 pm (UTC)I do think there are traces of a temper in the canonical account of Finrod and I, for one, don't think that Mandos and reembodiment would have eliminated them.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-01 09:07 pm (UTC)And your not-so-serene Finrod! I'd like to be a fly on the wall during a conversation between these two.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-05 08:47 pm (UTC)Yes, the idea that the plan was hatched in one of Celebrian's clearer moments was really important to me.
I doubt that I'm strong or wise enough to write the actual conversations.between Celebrian and Finrod, although I dare to hope he knows what he is doing.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-01 10:18 pm (UTC)I also really loved this: Elrond does not know much about handling girls; Arwen can twist him around her little finger.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-05 09:02 pm (UTC)Yes, everything we know about Finrod suggests that he would take a great deal of interest in his niece. That Celebrian doubts it is a measure of how much her confidence has suffered.
We do know that Arwen and Elrond loved each other, but that Arwen spent a lot of time with Galadriel. The explanation for that might be quite different of course, but I'm glad you like this one!
no subject
Date: 2013-04-01 11:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-05 09:03 pm (UTC)I do think Finrod could be a great help to Celebrian.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-02 12:22 am (UTC)I love the thought that for Celebrian, Valinor is the exile, and of course, not!serene Finrod. Very, very good.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-05 09:15 pm (UTC)Well, of course, the complete absence of orcs is a considerable plus but, with Celebrian's background, it is not evident to me that she would necessarily have regarded Valinor as all that desirable on other counts. So I decided that in my 'verse she doesn't--it was Rivendell she loved.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-02 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-05 09:19 pm (UTC)I arrived at it in a slightly roundabout way but, once I had thought of it, it seemed to me that Finrod and Celebrian really had a lot in common, despite the obvious differences.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-02 04:41 am (UTC)But I really like the connection you draw between Finrod and Celebrian. It makes perfect sense, and it gives Celebrian a reason to go to Valinor that isn't just a retreat from the world. There's someone there who can help her because he's gone through the same sort of trauma. Finrod's outrage, and his immediate willingness to help is fantastic - and I love how you give him such an intimate connection to the niece he never met. That she can touch his thoughts and bring him to respond to her before she ever gets to Valinor is great.
Thanks for taking this one on, Himring!
no subject
Date: 2013-04-05 08:02 am (UTC)I have to confess this was originally an old plot bunny but it had mutated in the back of my mind in worrying ways and I think I needed your prompt to push me into trying to write it--for I agree that Celebrian is a tough subject. I'm very glad you approve of the result!
I believe I got the idea of Celebrian meeting Finrod from a story by CuriousWombat. She has Celebrian meeting Celeborn's brother, a marginal canon character that we know very little about. So it occurred to me that she had another uncle, one we know more about, and that we know that she could have met him in Valinor!
no subject
Date: 2013-04-02 08:22 am (UTC)Love this story. I adore angry determined Felagund!
no subject
Date: 2013-04-05 09:36 pm (UTC)I'm very glad this worked for you. I was anxious about this piece, because I do think Celebrian is tricky to write. As you see, what I tried was to show her on a day when she is feeling a little better and a bit more in control and only hint at what her worst days were like.
And of course I'm glad you like my Finrod here--although knowing how you feel about Finrod I was almost certain you would approve!
no subject
Date: 2013-04-05 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-02 02:45 pm (UTC)- Erulisse (one L)
no subject
Date: 2013-04-05 09:38 pm (UTC)I hadn't quite thought of it that way, but you are right, of course! Celebrian will be good for Finrod, too, in more than one way.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-04 07:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-05 09:41 pm (UTC)I felt sure she would have thought about how it affected her family. Only, ill as she was, she might have found it difficult to hold onto her thoughts very well...
no subject
Date: 2013-04-04 10:12 pm (UTC)I've often thought Celebrian's suffering and removal to Valinor had a purpose--for when Frodo finally arrives, who better to understand his suffering?
Just as Finrod will understand his niece.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-05 09:44 pm (UTC)Have you already written about Celebrian and Frodo meeting in Valinor or is that a plot bunny for a future story?
no subject
Date: 2013-04-05 10:06 pm (UTC)While I like Celebrian very much, especially as certain fanwriters depict her, she hasn't really introduced herself to me enough to show her in more detail yet.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-06 03:09 am (UTC)And that last scene, oh, it makes my heart sing! His fury is so bright, and alive and focused entirely on her, on making her better as soon as he can get his hands on her, after waiting for so long knowing she suffered. A sudden, unexpected, brusque intrusion of hope at the end of Celebrian's sad story. Ah, it's wonderful.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 09:29 am (UTC)And yes, it was difficult for Finrod, knowing how badly Celebrian needed him but that nevertheless he couldn't answer immediately but had to wait for her to come to Valinor.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-08 08:29 am (UTC)It was terrible for Elrond, I'm sure. I've written a little about his point-of-view elsewhere, but that is part of a longer fic.