Chapter Text
The bell tolls too early for daybreak, when the sky is sealed over in violet gloaming and the morning star dazzles distantly on the horizon.
Elwing looks up to hail her husband’s return. She shares a murmured prayer with him and with her daughters.
Then she races to her son, singing joyously as she goes.
###
The nesting is a more festive affair this time around. Celebhîr presides over the party, at the center of which Elrond rests, curled beside the egg while he is brought food and tea and trinkets. They are clean now, he and the child, and the nest has been resurfaced with fresh linens, and sung full of moss and soft grasses.
Everyone has had a hand in the proceedings. Galadriel has been at Elwing’s side, and Idril arrived a few days ago; they were her aides in the initial delivery. As Elrond recovers Elladan has been the healer deputy, keeping watch on his condition—while Elrohir has been keeping everyone fed, in addition to managing the enthusiasm of Galadhon’s extended household. All the elders and cousins have been eager and curious as helpers and as revelers, for none have witnessed a childbearing such as this. As Elwing tells it, with her law-mother gone to sea her labor and improvised egg-warming in Sirion had been attended by a horrified Iathrin midwife and a confused Bëorian, who left with unique impressions about the nature of Elvish reproduction.
Celebhîr keeps inquiring if Elrond feels depleted; at his word the celebration would subside. But his husband is glad to share the joy, receiving every blessing, allowing all hands and hearts to assist the incubation. The egg is a wonder, speckled brown and bigger than the last, humming in portent of the life within.
How strange, with the sleepless nights to come, that they should have this interval, a moment to behold all they have done.
And yet the child’s parents also bear a terrible impatience—though they are delicate in their expression of it, not wishing to crowd his newly-waking mind. It is a careful thing, emergence.
Then at last: a flicker of resolve, a sudden knock, as if heralding one soon to cross the threshold.
All gather around, with stirring songs and cries of awe. It is Celeborn, wandering from the margins, who kneels before the shards of shell, and in laughing delight identifies the species.
“Of course—a kestrel-hawk!”
###
Bruinen Celros, when he undergoes his first shapeshifting, has pale green eyes, and a thatch of chestnutty curls shot through with miraculous silver in sunlight. He is unlike any creature that Elrond has ever seen.
When Galadriel holds him she laughs in rare glee. “At last! One of ours.”
“I think you mean ours.” Idril peers over her shoulder. “Ardamírë’s was just like that when he was born, only gold beneath. And the eyes are most assuredly Hadorian.”
“Telerin!”
The baby screams. Bouncing and soothing in lilting Taliska, Elwing brings him back to Elrond.
“He certainly sounds like your brother.”
“Like both of you,” says Celebhîr tiredly, although with winking fondness.
Elladan scoffs, slowly setting out the lunch-dishes. “We were adorable.”
“And we still are!” calls Elrohir from the cookstove.
Elrond looks at Bruinen Celros, who curls to him in sudden, perfect calm. It will not always be so. Yet his son returns his gaze with wordless love, bemused contentment—how strange it all must be.
“He sounds like himself,” says Elrond, for he can feel his wonder, his will to know the world he has been born to. There is so very much to learn.
###