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Listening to Blood Upon the Snow and thinking about Celegorm raising Elured and Elurin in the wilderness, as one does.

Celegorm does absolutely kill Dior. That very much happens. Dior has the bad fortune to look very much like both his parents in a way that does no favors for Celegorm's already tenuous sanity. This is not an excuse; it is merely context.

Dior is dead. Celegorm is wounded, badly enough to kill him if he doesn't get help soonish, but not quite badly enough to keep him from chasing after a hint that the people fleeing with the Silmaril have gone this way.

He makes it out of Menegroth, but is disoriented enough from his injury that he loses the trail. Instead, he stumbles on Elured and Elurin where they've been dumped in the woods by his men.

Important context: Celegorm has managed, in the fighting and running around, to lose his red cloak and any other obvious Feanorian tokens. Right now, he just looks like a random injured elf, and silver hair is more common among Sindar than Noldor.

Further important context: Elured and Elurin look a lot like Luthien, not noticeably like Beren, and inherited Nimloth's silver hair. In short, they look kind of like they could be Celegorm and Luthien's kids. Enough so that he initially thinks he's hallucinating them.

For their part, Elured and Elurin, six years old and cold and alone and scared, decide that this silver-haired elf must be Daeron, whom they heard stories of from their grandma.

Yes, he has Treelit eyes. But the twins and Elwing and Dior and their grandma and great-grandparents had eyes that glowed a little because of exposure to Melian/the Silmaril, so maybe that's it. They're little kids, and it seems more plausible than him being one of the monsters they've heard about. If he were a monster, he'd have killed them already.

So Elurin heals him.

Celegorm wakes up with the twins huddled on either side of him, calling him Daeron. A little questioning reveals that they were left there to die by Feanorian soldiers.

Celegorm has some decisions to make. He has no clue where the Silmaril has gone. Maybe his brothers do. But maybe they don't. And maybe they want these children who look like his and Luthien's dead.

It's not a healthy or even especially sane line of reasoning that gets him there, but what Celegorm ends up deciding to do is to keep the twins, keep on letting them think he's Daeron, and raise them hiding out in the wilderness.

Elured and Elurin don't really argue with this plan. All their safe grownups are dead, and this grownup is saying he can protect them if they stay with him and do as he says. He answers to a name that they believe they can trust. And they're six, which at least in my headcanon of peredhil maturity years is more like four and a half.

They camp in the ruins of Doriath at first. The Girdle is gone, but entropy hasn't had quite as much time with this area as with other parts of Beleriand. And no one's going to look for them there - any Sindar who might expose him have fled, and his brothers whom he still thinks might kill the children are keeping further east.

Celegorm keeps them safe, but he can't afford to coddle them. He teaches them as much as possible about wilderness survival, about hunting, about fighting, because he knows in his Song-mended gut that one day he will no longer be able to protect them and when that day comes they had better be able to protect themselves.

They have no parents to nurture their fëar, so he wraps his battered, stained soul around them as best he can. If only Dior had not been so stubborn, he tells himself, it would not have come to this. If only Luthien had stayed with him, these could have been their children in truth, and there would never be a problem.

He wants to ignore their human blood, but can't entirely. Elured and Elurin tire faster, get sick more easily, and grow faster than elvish children would. Celegorm curses Beren and his blood often, though he keeps it inside his own head because the twins have ridiculously good ears and there's no way to get out of their hearing range while still keeping close enough for safety.

He gives up speaking Quenya entirely. He stops speaking to animals, too, because he's always avoided talking to animals he's hunting for food, and these days anything he can kill that isn't tainted by Morgoth is a potential food source.

Elured and Elurin get taught to hunt as soon as he can be sure they won't hurt themselves. He paints their faces with the blood of their respective first kills and tells them it's a general ritual to honor Araw. It feels blasphemous to lie about traditions of the Hunt, even now, but it would feel more so to not do this for his children.

They are his, he tells himself. Some days it's for Luthien's sake, to save the last bit of her, and sometimes it's for petty vengeance on Beren and Dior, and sometimes (more and more often as time goes on) it's for the sake of the children themselves.

Elured is ever vigilant, ever determined to be strong and tough and enough so he will never lose anyone else again. Elurin says little but watches everything and draws startlingly perceptive conclusions. He has the makings of a healer, if there were anyone besides the necessity of emergencies to teach him.

Elurin is the one who asks "Daeron" why he betrayed Luthien and let Thingol lock her up instead of helping her, if he loved her. It's an innocent enough question, but it hits hard, because after all, it's not so far from what Celegorm actually did. And he's always told the twins that love means doing good for someone else even if it hurts you (although sometimes that means not letting yourself get hurt and making them worry).

He has to do a lot of soul-searching, and finally tells them that a) he was trying to keep Luthien safe (true) and b) he doesn't always love right. Sometimes what he calls love is selfish and clinging, and that's how it was with Luthien. It's the most honest he's ever been with them, until Elured asks if that's how he loves them, and Celegorm says definitely not even though he's suddenly no longer sure.

Time goes on. The twins get older. The three of them haven't seen another person since the Second Kinslaying. They're all a little feral. The twins, for lack of any reason to hide it, are a little eldritch. They for sure can and do turn into birds of prey on occasion.

The twins sing sometimes. They had to teach themselves - there was no way Celegorm was going to try and pass off his voice as Daeron's, so he just says he doesn't feel like singing since Luthien, and it's not really a lie.

Without really meaning to, they keep edging slightly further west. Celegorm doesn't know there's a Silmaril that way, but it still pulls him. He's just careful to avoid civilization, telling the twins it's too dangerous with no way to know who to trust.

One day they have to fight an orc pack and Elurin gets hurt, too badly to heal himself right away. For the first time since the twins were small, Celegorm is terrified he'll lose him.

It's the first time that he lets himself acknowledge that it's his fault they're in this situation. He and Curufin got the others to attack Doriath. He killed Dior. It's not Dior's or Beren's or anyone else's fault that Elurin could die, that he and Elured have been in danger all this time. It's his. Celegorm's.

He knew, obviously, that attacking Doriath and killing Dior was wrong. He just didn't care, didn't feel guilty about it. Now he does.

Elurin pulls through. Celegorm contemplates telling the twins the truth about everything, but he can't bear to destroy the one thing they trust in. More than that, he can't bear to lose them. He knows it's selfish, knows he should tell all and give them up to a better life than being adopted sons of a feral, lying kinslayer in the wilderness. But he can't make himself do it.

Time continues to pass. The question is abruptly rendered academic when they stray a little too close to Sirion and a scouting/hunting party stumbles across them.

Even filthy and ragged and rangy, there's no mistaking descendants of Luthien. Elured and Elurin are taken up at once, told their sister will want to know they're alive. Celegorm is about to slink off, but the twins identify him as Daeron and insist he comes with them. So that's what he ends up doing.

There's no way the lie can continue to hold up once they get there, but that's fine. He can finally get it off his chest and justice will be done to him. He's known he was going to die sooner or later and was fine with this as long as he died doing something that helped the twins. This, he figures, qualifies.

Elwing, when they meet her, is like if someone took all the scariest, most dangerous parts of Luthien and made a person out of just those. She is also very young, and very pregnant.

Everyone is overjoyed to see Elured and Elurin. However, Sirion has a whole lot of people who have been exposed to the Silmaril and have seen Amanyar elves and know the difference. No one believes that Celegorm is Daeron.

Upon being question, he admits that he is Celegorm Feanorion, and that he killed Dior. Elwing is furious. Elured and Elurin are horrified. Celegorm apologizes to them for everything, and surrenders to Elwing for execution, but she decides death is too good for him and it would be worse for him to be locked up and have to live with her brothers' hatred. (She's right. (She's toying with the thought of having Elured execute him if he ever wants to, but this will do for now, while she reconnects with the twins.)

Celegorm is locked up, with great precautions taken to make sure he can't break out and go chasing after the Silmaril. Elured and Elurin are reeling from everything that's just happened, not least the discovery that the only father they can really remember killed their real father and has been lying to them the whole time. Their instinct is still to love and trust him, which makes things interesting with Elwing, who already hated Celegorm and hates him more now that he apparently dared to survive and suborn her brothers.

Earendil, once he returns, tries to smooth over sibling tensions as best he can.

Elwing's twins, Elrond and Elros, are born. Elured and Elurin love them at once. They don't love that Earendil is about to take off to sea again. They grew up with Celegorm apologizing gruffly that his soul was all that was available to nurture theirs, that it should be their parents. They won't accept any excuse for a parent leaving their kids when they don't absolutely have to (i.e., imminent death).

Earendil stays.

Celegorm continues to rot in prison. It's miserable on a number of levels, but he can't tell himself anymore that he doesn't deserve it.

Sometimes after he's lost track of time, Elwing and Elured and Elurin come to him, saying that his brothers are threatening to attack and asking how they can defend themselves. Celegorm looks them in the eyes and says they won't like it, but as long as Elured or Elurin is holding the Silmaril, they should all be fine, because he essentially adopted them, making them "Feanor's kin".

It's a simple, elegant solution, but Elured and Elurin knee-jerk refuse, because that would mean acknowledging him - the real him - as a parent.

But of course, the Feanorians eventually march on Sirion regardless. They might not win, but they're definitely going to do a lot of damage. And Elured is done losing people.

He gets Elwing to give him the Silmaril to wear. The moment he has it, the Oath quits pulling the Feanorions to attack. They're actually pretty confused about this, because they know they don't have it.

Maedhros writes to Elwing apologizing and asking what happened. She tells him, not especially politely, that she doesn't have to explain anything to him.

Well, that won't do. Maedhros sends in spies, who infiltrate all too easily and report back that Elured and Elurin resurfaced some years ago, having been in the care of one who is rumored to be a son of Feanor. The twins are now taking turns wearing the Silmaril.

All four Feanorions are staggered to learn that Celegorm survived all this time and apparently raised/adopted Dior's sons. But before they can come up with a plan to get him out that doesn't involve violence, Morgoth renders the question moot and attacks Sirion.

The Sirion refugees and the Feanorions, disconcertingly, find themselves on the same side. It isn't enough. Sirion is going to fall.

Elured and Elurin end up telling Earendil and Elwing to leave Elrond and Elros with them, take the Silmaril, and try to sail west and get the Valar's help, because that is now officially the only help left.

They still aren't sure how they feel about Celegorm, but they free him as they're escaping. If nothing else, they need an expert in keeping small peredhil alive in the wilderness.

They don't have to go it alone this time, though. They run into the other Feanorions, who are not about to let Celegorm out of their sight this century, and somehow all the survivors end up in one conglomerated group.

There are definitely people in this new united group who want to kill each other, but for right now, Morgoth is the bigger problem.

He remains the bigger problem until Finarfin's forces show up, and by then people have...mostly put their grudges aside. Like, the murder and violence definitely happened, but a lot of mutual survival assistance has now also happened. It's not perfect. It's very far from fair. But it's what is.

Elrond and Elros are peacemakers before they can reliably spell, because they're the one thing everyone can agree on. Whether because they're the heirs of Doriath, or the nephews of Lord Celegorm's adopted sons, or just all-too-rare children in the middle of this war, they have to be kept alive and thriving.

They end up actually being the ones to persuade Finarfin to give the other two Silmarils to Elured and Elurin. The Oath is technically fulfilled, no one gets burned, and everyone who's still alive lives.

Things between Celegorm and Elured and Elurin haven't gotten much less complicated in the past fifty years. He is still the one who killed their father, and the parental figure they know best, both at once. All of them chipping in to help raise Elrond and Elros sort of helped and sort of didn't.

When the war ends, Elured and Elurin decide to sail, partly for their sister and partly because they've been advised that Dior chose elvenhood in Mandos and will be reembodied along with Nimloth someday.

They invite Celegorm to go with them, but he declines. He's finally found some letting-go somewhere in himself, and wants them to be able to figure themselves out independently of him. He and Amrod and Amras set themselves to hunting down stray dark creatures. They're very good at this. They even find Sauron in the hole he's crawled into and trap him and ship him over the Sea.

Elrond and Elros take their places in history. Maedhros and Maglor, who bonded with them during the It Takes A Village years, stay with them a lot, and get some sanity back.

Without Sauron, the Second Age is a lot more peaceful, but also the elf-rings are never inspired, so eventually the elves do have to clear out and head west.

Celegorm and Amrod and Amras stay until just about the last minute, but Elrond finally drags them onto a boat.

Meanwhile, Elured and Elurin have spent quite a lot of time healing and reconnecting with their birth parents. They love Dior and Nimloth and are quite the Sindar princes, but at root they will always be the kids raised by a barely-sane kinslayer in the wilderness. They make their peace with this.

When Celegorm arrives, they're a lot more glad to see him than he ever expected.

It's undeniably awkard with everyone's extended families for a solid few decades. But Elured is still determined to not lose anybody, and Elurin has gotten good at healing more than just bodies these days, and they're both very stubborn. They come by it honestly.

So in the end, somehow, they manage to make it work.

As for what's going to happen after the remaking of the world when Luthien and Beren could get added back into the mix...they'll cross that bridge when they come to it.

#silmarillion #celegorm #elured #elurin #elwing #the other kidnap fam #other kidnap fam: wilderness survival edition #background celegorm x luthien #bullet point au #fix-it

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