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Before we start, I want you to take a moment. Imagine Maglor. Second Age Maglor, sad and alone. Imagine he has been rained on recently. I want, in your mind, the soggiest, most malnourished, most pathetic Maglor you can manage. That is the Maglor being described here, by a significantly healthier and more confused Maglor some time later.
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Length: 7 minutes
So there I was, minding my own damn business among the scrubby cliffs on the coast of Forlindon, definitely paying attention to my surroundings, when some guy said from directly behind me, “Are you Makalaurë Fëanárion?” like we were at a party under the light of Laurelin and a meddling cousin was sending strangers to jumpscare me.
Naturally I turned around extremely gracefully and replied in Sindarin at a perfectly normal volume, “What the actual fuck is wrong with you?”
Before me was someone who carried an aura of beauty so overwhelming it felt purposeful, like he wanted everyone who looked at him to know he'd been the most gorgeous person in every room he'd ever been in, and they should feel bad about themselves forever. Once I got past that, though, he looked like… a particularly pretty Vanya, maybe, or a Maia who liked to play at Elvishness. His voice, when he'd spoken, was smooth and rich and hypnotizing. He wasn’t Treelit, but his hair fell in a golden river over his shoulders with mathematical precision. His face was completely symmetrical, with warm, dark, perfect skin. He was smiling at me with the kind of gentle patience that drove Father up the wall when Maiar directed it at him, and I suddenly became intensely aware that my only instruments at that moment were a homemade reed flute and a voice I hadn’t been providing with enough water recently. He looked me up and down, with an assessing gaze that had a weight I could feel, and said in that gentle, pleasant, irritatingly soothing voice, “Hello there! Yes, I do think I was right.”
I asked him who the hell he was, and his smile got so wide I’d have been worried about him hurting himself if I weren’t increasingly certain this guy was not, in fact, an Elf. He answered, “I am come as an emissary!” as though it were a very bad joke, but I did not get it and I was not interested in getting it.
“An emissary from who?”
“From your nephew!” the stranger replied. The shit-eating grin only got brighter when he saw my shock, and he tilted his head like a fucking pigeon. “Do you want to come see him?”
At this point, you have to understand, my brain had been completely replaced by the sound of rushing water. Maybe some seagull noises, whatever. My point is – there were no thoughts in there. It had never occurred to me that anyone who was left (which was not a very large fraction of the family) might ever want to be near me. Why would they? I didn’t even want to be near me. So it was a moment before I was able to answer. When I did, it occurred to me that wiping out my brain by suggesting my family was interested in my presence would be a good way to get me to a secondary location that I would absolutely not want to be in. So I asked him, “Well, where is he?”
The golden stranger replied unhelpfully, “In the city he rules, to the south-east of here,” as though literally the whole continent weren’t south-east of there. I had heard of Ost-in-Edhil, though, and couldn't actually see a reason not to go there. Not if Celebrimbor actually wanted me there. And if I'd shown up and he didn't, he would just have thrown me out, right? He might even have been more angry with the stranger than with me. So I decided that was probably okay.
Still, despite all evidence to the contrary I’m not completely stupid, so I asked him why he wanted me to go see Celebrimbor.
“Well, he misses you,” the stranger said, “And it would be a shame for you to miss his first wedding centennial.”
Yeah, my face did about what yours is doing now. He just kept talking. The only indication he even noticed my shock was a near-imperceptible impression of smug satisfaction. “He doesn’t have that much family left, you know! Elrond had to stand with him at the wedding. Do you realize how angry I am that you didn’t show up to replace him?”
I needed him to back up a bit, because I had not known anything about this. I asked, “Wait, Celebrimbor is married?”
He said, “Yep!” and literally nothing else, because (as I was learning) he's an asshole.
I pressed, “To who?”
The asshole in question rocked on his heels and literally glowed with glee, saying “Me, actually!” and I’m not convinced I have ever hated anyone more.
So naturally, I threw my hands up and cried, “Well, who the fuck are you then!”
And the apparent actual fucking Maia leant in close, his smile dimming, and said, very seriously: “Your nephew’s husband, we’ve just gone over this.”
I almost tried to stab him with the stupid flute. When I instead just tried to back up, he kept pace with me, and the cliff was behind me. Close behind me, at that point.
And then I had to dance around three more conversational sidesteps before I could get a name out of him. Even then, what he actually said was, “I have several,” which is the most Nessa-oriented bullshit I’d heard in literal Ages, but he at least gave me, “Tyelpë prefers to call me Annatar. I like Tar-Glóriel best, though, since it’s very clearly one of a matched set.”
It didn’t make much sense, but it told me he was (or wanted to be seen as) some kind of royalty. I didn’t actually remember whether Eregion had a monarch, I’d heard something about a scandalous new governance type. In any case, this bitch’s nonsense wasn’t making me want to follow him anywhere. And it was hard to believe – “Your husband calls you the lord of gifts?”
Tar-Glóriel (apparently) explained, “It’s how I introduced myself to him the first time, I suppose it’s nostalgic,” which was on the outer edges of plausibility but whatever. Life is already so damn weird. “I’d like to prove it accurate, however – why do you think I came all the way out here?”
It was at this point that I finally put it together. “Wait, are you trying to take me to Celebrimbor as a centennial present?”
“Yes!” I tell you, this bastard somehow sparkled like it was laughter, and said, “I thought a tearful reunion with a long-lost family member would make a good gift.”
And then his face went suddenly almost-serious again, and he laid a gentle hand on my shoulder – not appearing to notice me trying not to let him – to ask me softly, “Are you going to be a good gift?”