Vignettes of the Blessed Realm - Celebrimbor in Mandos

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Silmarillion Gen - Celebrimbor, Vaire

In which Celebrimbor continues to seek practical applications for cutting- edge cosmological research.

"So you, see, Holy One, I am making quite good progress with the theoretical part of the project," Celebrimbor (or rather his ghost) said earnestly. "All I need now is some Loom-time to test the hypothesis. If the result is as predicted, it should be sufficient proof of concept to warrant further development. All we need is a very minor event, one that doesn't involve sentients or even multi-cellular life-forms, so that the reaction shouldn't propagate very far. The Song is a fairly robust artifact, after all, if it has survived the Secondborn this long."

"Hmm," said Vaire the Weaver in as non-committal a tone as She could manage.

While almost as legendarily impassive as her spouse the Judge (Ages of recording the activities of the Children had left Her both unshockable and rather envious of Her colleague Yavanna's determined focus on beetles), in this case She was conscious of a definite sense of ill-usage. In leaving Celebrimbor in Her sole charge, Mandos was manifestly shirking His fair share of soul-sitting duty. Not that Celebrimbor was unpleasant or even particularly mentally disturbed as members of his family went. He remained the sweet-natured genius with minimal social skills that he had been in life, and as a person Vaire liked him as well as She liked anybody. Even though, to Vaire's great regret - incarnate scientists were Aule's problem - he had refused to be reincarnated despite repeated offers. Indeed, pleas. Not having a body meant, essentially, uninterrupted thinking time.

This should not have been a problem. Thinking was the point of the Halls of Waiting. The problem was what Celebrimbor thought about.

"Taking into consideration the non-causal cyclical network circuitry built into the Loom, combined with its unique nature as an artifact existing simultaneously in the corporeal and non-corporeal realms, I have hypothesised that at sufficiently high energy levels - such as those at which the Valar transact - the corporeal-world ban on retroactive modification of instantiated events could be overcome by... Holy One you did receive my paper on this subject, yes?"

"I did." If the Weaver's normal calm needed some work to maintain, only She needed to know it. "Celebrimbor, do you seriously think that you can use My Loom to change the past?"

"Yes," said Feanor's grandson.

Comments

[clodia-metelli.livejournal.com]

I like that! Lovely touches of humour and the potential for catastrophe is immense... Thank you!

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it. I mostly keep my ficlets in Memories in my LJ, but since this is non-LOTR, I thought it would fit here. It seemed reasonable that Celebrimbor was not suddenly going to stop being a mad genius just because it didn't work out well the first time.

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

OMG! I knew I loved Celebrimbor a lot! This is so much fun. Thank you for sharing!

One of my favorite lines:

Not that Celebrimbor was unpleasant or even particularly mentally disturbed as members of his family went. He remained the sweet-natured genius with minimal social skills that he had been in life,

But you absolutely had me hooked with:

All I need now is some Loom-time to test the hypothesis.

Oh, yes. I'm with Celebrimbor all the way here. It's definitely worth a shot. There were a few errors in judgment, not mention outright mistakes, made by both the Valar and the Secondborn.

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I rather fear that if Vaire is so unwise as to agree, Celebrimbor is going to change the developmental history of one little amoeba and the Children are going to emerge with six legs and feelers (Yavanna being fond of beetles).

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

Celebrimbor is going to change the developmental history of one little amoeba and the Children are going to emerge with six legs and feelers (Yavanna being fond of beetles).

I'm sure you are right! I am such a sappy optimist.

[devilledluck.livejournal.com]

Bwaha! I loved this. Still giggling over the last line, although I have to say another favourite was definitely:

He remained the sweet-natured genius with minimal social skills that he had been in life,

[grey_gazania]

This is ridiculously adorable! Especially this:

Even though, to Vaire's great regret - incarnate scientists were Aule's problem - he had refused to be reincarnated despite repeated offers. Indeed, pleas. Not having a body meant, essentially, uninterrupted thinking time.

And the idea of Celebrimbor submitting a paper to Vaire - so many giggles!

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

But of course. Consider the Loom, an artifact capable of recording every event, involving every living thing on the planet, micro to macro, simultaneously (Tokien doesn't say it can, but I think it's a logical extrapolation). An entity capable of understanding and using it is the logical person to whom to submit one's insane and possibly catastrophic hypothesis about the nature of the universe.

[erfan-starled.livejournal.com]

This is just inspired. I love it for more than one reason. Humour, concept and delivery, and a personal touch about both the characters. Really good. Also the 'thinking' time and the not attempting to experiment with multi-cellulars. I like Celembrimbor, too, and like a happy story about him.

Makes me sigh and smile with pleasure, maybe because such a weight sometimes attaches to ideas about the Song and fate and the high Valar.

[anna-wing.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I try to characterise as I go. The Silmarillion gives such scope to do so that it would be a pity not to. I hadn't written about Celebrimbor directly before, but this one just came naturally. Of course he woudn't have minded being dead, and of course he would have found a field of enquiry where he could do experiments even without a body. Mad geniuses never give up.

[clotho123.livejournal.com]

This seems so terribly plausible. Although I'm wondering how Celebrimbor is producing papers if he's incorporal... probably getting dictating to some hapless assistant of Vaire who he's worn down through sheer persistance.

Great piece.

[sargent-snarky.livejournal.com]

That death does not stop Celebrimbor from being a mad genius makes me quite happy - indeed, this entire ficlet makes me happy! Although... I must ask, how did he write a paper to submit, anyway, if he is deceased?

Let us only hope, though, that Vaire does not allow him access to the Loom, just in case something goes terribly wrong. xD Tsk on Mandos for foisting Celebrimbor on His wife, though. xD

Thank you for sharing this delightful piece! :)