Chapter Text
The morning sun peeked over the rolling hills as the two shades were conversing. As the wind gently caressed them, the springtime weather was a perfect foil for the beauty of Nurn’s lush landscape against the dreary Mordor ash and dirt with desiccated foliage. Their escapades of the previous night but mere whispers on the wind, privy to no one except themselves. The ranger and the former wraith were an odd duo. Neither alive nor dead, but restored to fully corporeal forms regardless for seemingly no reason. The elf could only speculate that, by their actions, they had been fully banished from death. Now, he and his companion faced a new dilemma. What to do with their new undying forms.
“You know, we could go to Minas Tirith. The orcs will soon die off and we haven’t any better places to be?” Talion posed the question. He looked over to Celebrimbor. His ever faithful companion and thorn in his side. The two sat together on the edge of a river bank in their tunics and trousers, armor set aside for each of them.
The elf glowered and gestured to his armor. “What do you suggest we do with this, then? Mithril and silver are going to attract more than its fair share of attention. Even if we were to pawn it off to some smith who knew of its value, I doubt they would have an entire home for us.” Celebrimbor loathed the idea of living among the people, if only because of the noise. He yearned for the quiet of Eregion, but those halls had crumbled long ago.
Talion’s brow furrowed. “I was relatively familiar with an herbalist with an odd sense of humor in the base ring of the city. I doubt it’s still there but if there’s a shop named Grave Concoctions. I think we might be able to find a solution. Hopefully he might have a grandson still milling about.” His throat burned slightly, in truth he had a different purpose in wanting to visit an herbalist. He knew that his throat was going to be infected soon. While he was still possessed by the wraith, such trivialities were beyond his body, but now they were separate? Illness was the only thing that would pose such an inconvenience to this new body.
“Grave concoctions. An odd choice indeed. It’s easily been over a hundred years if not more since you last visited. I would hardly place such faith that a lineage of men would maintain themselves in the same place.” Celebrimbor said. He couldn’t help but smile at the sardonic choice of the shop name.
The ranger rolled his eyes. “You are always so quick to dismiss my race as transient. Need I remind you that it was Annatar who was an elf that caused this entire mess? Eternity is as much a problem as mortality.”
The elf grumbled. “Go put on your armor.”
The ranger let out a hearty chuckle. “If only you were so agreeable when we were in the same body.” He knew that the former wraith had softened in his demeanor quite a bit since acquiring a body to truly call his own. Normally such a challenge to the elven lord's authority was met with harsh words and an even harsher insult.
“How long will it take to get to Minas Tirith?” Celebrimbor asked flatly.
Talion looked at the mountains to the north west. They were at the edge of what was considered to be Nurn proper. “Shouldn’t take more than a week and a half if we travel during night and day and minimize our delays. I should have had the foresight to loot a knapsack from that Uruk the other day.”
“Or you can forage, like we always have.” The annoyance in the elf’s voice was all too apparent.
Talion sighed and started to put on his armor as his companion did the same. In truth he knew that he would be the one to forage for them. The elf for all his archery skills, was a lousy hunter, and even worse at sneaking. An irony given his keen eyesight and ability to mark a target from a quarter mile away. “You mean like I always do.”
Their banter was cut short by a rather odd occurrence. A sole orc wandering around, just barely on the edge of their combined periphery. As the elf got a better look at the orc, he groaned in disgust. “Talion. That… thing. It’s back.” The disgust in his voice was all too apparent. Dripping with hatred and malice for a lesser life that only the bright lord was known to carry.
“Ratbag? He’s alive?” There was a mix of curiosity and almost joy. He felt like there was absolutely no way that he would have followed them. In truth he had something of a soft spot for the half wit orc, partially because he was endearing, and partially because he was useful and something else that he couldn’t quite place among the litany of negative traits.
As the orc came up the rolling knolls and to the river he let out a mighty shriek that was more befitting of a maiden than an orc. “THE BRIGHT LORD?!?!” The orc immediately turned tail and ran only to be tackled to the ground by a running ranger who was all too eager to wrangle an answer out of the orc.
“Let go of me! Leggo of me!” Ratbag screamed as he struggled and flailed wildly only to open his eyes to see the gravewalker, and his honey brown eyes and a most misplaced and odd smile.
“Gravewalker? Is that you?” Ratbag squirmed out of Talion’s running tackle and looked at the ranger. He saw that the ranger was dressed in a manner similar to when they first met all those years ago.
Talion got up from the ground and took a look at Ratbag, the scrawny orc looked almost identical to when he first awoke Valar knows how many years ago. Although the notable exception was the fact there was a nasty set of wrought iron hoops going through his skull. He only just barely noticed that the orc had a rather sizable knapsack on his back. “How? How did you get here? It’s been… You ought to be dead?”
“Well that’s the funny thing. I woke up, ash and soot everywhere, mount doom eruptin like a wenches fury. Felt this odd niggling in me head that I should go south and bring the biggest knapsack I could carry. Nicked it off some Uruk who was face down in the dirt. Why’s that… elf? He’s an elf right? I ain’t seen one of them alive before.” Ratbag gestured wildly, all too animated and full of the life that
Celebrimbor casually walked down the hill to see that Talion dusted himself off and stood up. His gaze was piercing to the orc. “It seems the Valar have a sense of humor, reanimating an orc for their errands.” He dryly remarked.
“Yes, he’s an elf. He’s my… uhh. Companion.” His words lingered in the air as Ratbag gave a confused look.
“You. Travelin wit the bright lord? He has his own body now? If we orcs weren’t an endangered species already, he’d make sure we were. Anyways you want this old rucksack? It’s full of a bunch of roots and herbs. Smells right terrible. Got enough salt on the bottom to kill a stag and roast em all nice and tasty.” Ratbag took off the oversized sack and sat it down with a hefty thud, opening it up to reveal a massive quantity of earthbread, kingsfoil, and azuradan and several chunks of rock salt.
“He talks far too much.” Celebrimbor said quietly. He desperately wanted to be rid of the orc. The corruption even something like Ratbag represented was going to drive him mad in a matter of hours.
Talion nodded and closed the knapsack and lifted it up and slung it around his back, feeling the heft as it nearly sent him stumbling back a few paces. “Thank you Ratbag. It’s been a long journey. We aren’t entirely sure why we are back.”
“Could be you got some big destiny to fulfill? I’ve been lookin for Ranger but he ain’t nowhere to be found. I think I got lucky and woke up at the right time. I think I’ll go to Mount Doom again and look around. Maybe find a fort to overtake. It’s like everyone died there. Easy pickins to me.” Ratbag said, absorbed in his monologue too much to even notice that Celebrimbor was glaring at him.
“Maybe you should do that. You never know how much time you have left.” Celebrimbor said with a deep voice, bordering on an almost snarl. His eyes fixated on the cowardly orc as the orc finally looked up to the tall elf. The look of annoyance on his face was all too easily seen by even the dull orc.
“Right, err. If you’ll be excusin me, I got a fort to take over.” Ratbag said, withering under the look that the elf was giving him as he ran quickly off into the distance much faster than any orc reasonably should.
Talion shot Celebrimbor a dirty look. “You can’t be polite for even a five minute conversation? It seems the bright lord is back after all.”
“I see no reason to even pretend that thing is even an inferior. I can scarcely fathom how you manage to see anything charming in that bag of diseased flesh.” Celebrimbor said flatly. He truly couldn’t care less about the rangers’ odd fixations. At best this was a cosmic joke from the Valar to facilitate their wanderings. Their bodies had slowed greatly for their functions, hunger and sleep did not seem as large concerns to when they were both alive and mortal in a sense, but they were still things to take stock of. If they were lucky, they would be able to find some change of clothing for his armor and move slightly more discreetly.
Talion wore a disgusted, unamused expression. “Valar preserve me. The one time I think you’re finally back to being what some would consider passable you have to muck it up!”
“Passable! The nerve! You expect me to treat an orc like an equal? It’s one of Sauron’s ilk!” Celebrimbor’s face twisted in anger before seeing that Talion wouldn’t back down.
“Yes. Not all of them are brainless husks. You have a body, now act like you have a sense of honor or else you will be traveling alone.” Talion said, his resolute defiance standing up to the former wraith for at least the smallest bit of decency and decorum.
The two glared daggers at each other as they looked into their eyes for any sort of weakness before Celebrimbor relented first. “Fine. If we are fortunate enough to cross Ratbag’s path. I shall treat him as an equal. You are far too quick to use isolation as a means to win the argument.” He said. Anger stewed in his words and yet relented only a moment later. “Perhaps you may have a point.”
Talion let out a low, frustrated sigh, running a hand through his hair as he shot Celebrimbor a pointed glance. “Only a point? By the Valar, My Bright Lord, have we not spent years entwined in this miserable struggle? How many foes have we felled, how many enemies have we trampled underfoot, all for vengeance that slips away like sand through our fingers? And yet, you still cling to your pride, as if it can protect you from the burden of all we have lost.”
Celebrimbor stiffened at the words, but it wasn’t the accusation that brought a rare flush of color to his otherwise pale form. “No, it was that name.”
That cursed, forbidden name, reserved for quiet moments of doubt, for conversations laden with meanings neither dared to explore. It was a name that demanded recognition, that pulled something ancient and unspoken into the light. And Talion had used it with a casualness that was as natural as wielding a sword.
The wraith’s form flickered, just a bit, as if he were thrown off balance and reasserting himself. “You—” His voice, usually as sharp as a blacksmith’s hammer, trembled with a hint of uncertainty. “You know what we agreed about that name.”
Talion, despite his fatigue, managed a faint smirk. “Oh, I remember, “mîr nin.”” His voice was softer now, more resolute, like steel forged in fire. “But I’m afraid I’m quite serious.”
A heavy silence fell between them, thick with something neither could name. It lingered, stretching across the void between ranger and wraith, between man and legend, between duty and something far more perilous.
Celebrimbor inhaled sharply—a habit that had lost its meaning due to his spectral nature, yet one he couldn’t seem to abandon. His form flickered in the dim morning light, a faint glow outlining his translucent figure like embers dancing in the breeze.
“You tread on dangerous ground, ranger.” he finally said, his voice steady but edged with the sharpness of centuries spent in conflict. “I have reduced kingdoms to ashes for less.”
Talion let out a quiet, almost amused breath, crossing his arms over his chest as he regarded the wraith. “Aye, I don’t doubt it. But if my words truly angered you, I imagine you would have silenced me by now.” He lifted his chin slightly, a hint of defiance glimmering in his eyes. “And yet, here I stand.”
Celebrimbor’s eyes narrowed, their eerie glow flickering as he studied Talion with an unreadable expression. He remained still, silent for a moment, but there was a shift in his presence—subtle yet unmistakable, like a smith testing the balance of a blade before declaring it ready for battle.
Talion’s smirk faded, replaced by a quieter, steadier demeanor. “You were a lord once, yes. A ruler, a warrior, a smith whose name still echoes in history like an unfinished tale.” His voice softened, though it remained firm. “But you’re also mine, bound to me as surely as I am to you.”
Celebrimbor’s wraith-like form flickered more, a ripple of pale blue light tracing his outline, and for the briefest moment, Talion thought he detected a hint of hesitation. Not fear, nor anger—just the faintest trace of uncertainty.
“That is a perilous claim,” the wraith murmured, his voice now quieter, carrying an ancient weight, as if burdened by ghosts neither of them dared to mention.
Talion inclined his head slightly, his expression inscrutable. “Aye,” he agreed. “But no less true.”
Celebrimbor took a much more drawn out breath. The spectral nature of his visage settling back to flesh, a stark reminder that even in this form he was still the slightest bit disconnected from his own self. “Truly? What makes you so emboldened to use my language against me?” He was composed again, his gaze softened from the wild anger and arrogance of a lord insulted by a courtier to something much more methodical and curious. Scrutinizing the ranger for the tiniest of the cracks in his defenses.
Talion simply gestured with his hand and waved. “I believe you and I both know the answer to that. Remind me meloth nin, who taught me the many phrases to refer to a pair such as ourselves? Who helped me reforge Acharn to an elvish purity before it was tainted?” The ranger felt confident. Though the bright lord was now mortal and corporeal again, he could feel. He could love. The two of them had a most strained relationship, something that transcended simple lovers and bound them into a cycle of near endless hurt and tender comfort. No one could hurt him in the way the bright lord could. No one could love him like Celebrimbor could.
For once the elf lord couldn’t hide behind his previous actions. Only a fool would try to wield the blade of love and make haphazard cuts with their memories. He was sure he could outwit the ranger if nothing else. But logic would hold little sense in a battle where it was a pen and a sword. “I… Talion. You weaponize my own emotions against me? To think you held such a determination to resist Sauron.” He let out a wry laugh. One that was filled with the weight of his sins, ambitions, and failed vengeance.
Talion shook his head. “I’m asking you to be a human. Look beyond the elvish scope of time and feeling. You would call yourself the Bright Lord, you would ask me to call you Mir Nin in the quiet moments above it all on your towers. One who is worthy of such a title is not the fair lady Galadriel, bright and terrible of all things that would cower in her radiance. No, you are not she, and I expect you to be one worthy of my love. Please.” The last word hung in the air like a smith’s hammer breaking a dagger into a thousand shards.
It was a statement the former wraith couldn’t ignore. Not a question, not a bargain, a simple please. One that broke his resolve like a hammer to a window and shattered it into fine dust. For once in his nigh immortal lifespan, he genuinely didn’t have the words. It pierced his hearts, the words of a man who didn’t view the elvish lord as something to cower or to show complete reverence to. No he was being treated as an equal, and that vexed him madly. Everything to him was a matter of strength, wits, resolve, talent, anything. Something to make him worthy of the great lineage he held and his legendary feats of smithing the rings of power. Yet this simple ranger of Gondor had the gall to ask him please? It broke him.
“Talion. You view me as your equal do you not?” Celebrimbor’s voice was quiet, wracked with the weight of his emotions that he could barely manage.
He simply nodded. “I wouldn’t view you as anything less than mir nin. I love you, and I hate you more than anyone else I have ever met. You have put me through the darkest pits of hell. I would give up the entire world if I could go back and right our wrongs that led to our fate.” His hair gently waved in the breeze as he looked at the elven lord. His lover, his friend, his most hated person in the world. There were so many things he could call Celebrimbor, and none of them would ever describe exactly what they were to each other. Were they a knight and a lord? A ranger and an elf? A cursed couple, whose fate defied the very stars themselves? None could say. Least of all Talion.
Celebimbor let out a long drawn out sigh. “We shall talk about this eventually. The black gate, that is where your family is buried, yes? We should pay our respects to them before leaving this cursed land and figuring out… This...” He knew Talion was aiming for the heart and not pulling any punches. Worst of all, it was working. His words hung in the air, his own self loathing finally becoming apparent. He knew he wasn’t worthy of the love that the ranger offered him, how could he? He knew he was the sole reason that middle earth was put in such peril. Not only once, but twice.
“Agreed. Once we reach the black gate, Dirhael and Ioreth deserve a proper goodbye, then we figure out. Us.” Talion said. As much as he would like to drag this out and talk at length. He was exhausted by the back and forth. Yet he knew one undeniable truth, he both hated and loved Celebrimbor to a point that would be maddening to himself and the elf. For now, he knew his next goal- get to the Black Gate.