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It started in Valinor, if he was to be completely honest. It wasn’t every time—not even every third—but sometimes when he went outside Tyelpe felt . . . watched. Not just like when his father or uncles were there watching. Less friendly. It was dismissed easily and often, since there was never any evidence of anyone there, but it made him anxious. He didn’t like leaving his uncles or Huan even more than normal. He didn’t even want to go outside any more.
But there were more important things happening, so it was dismissed. Everyone knew Tyelpe tended to be unreasonably anxious, anyway. It was why he was never in public.
In Beleriand it got worse. Tyelpe had taken up the habit of walking around outside on his own, trying to focus on the air and nature around him instead of the feel of blood on his hands and sight of his mother and that Teleri whose name he didn’t even—the fresh air helped. He could wander for hours on end in the areas they’d secured. His father even encouraged it. But . . . he’d hear leaves crunching behind him, sometimes, when he couldn’t sense any animals or people nearby. And whenever he’d turn around to look for the source—shaken out of his own head from a spurt of fear—there was nothing.
It scared him. But this . . . the woods were his safest place, now, for his struggling mind. And they were supposed to be safe. They had to be safe. Tyelpe couldn’t mention his fears, or his feelings of being watched, or any of the sounds to his father and uncles, because they had enough on their minds. His troubles had already caused them enough stress. They didn’t need to deal with such a silly anxiety too.
Tyelperinquar could almost forget his memories once he restarted working on the war effort. So much of his time and effort was focused on helping them win this war; he couldn’t afford to waste energy on worrying over shadowy corners and odd noises. Nargothrond had entirely too many to worry about anyway.
The first present arrived the day he’d walked away from his family. Celebrimbor had little to no memories past throwing the circlet marking his position at his father’s feet thanks to drink and drugs, but he could hazily remember . . . someone. They’d kissed him in the depths of his despair—lips hot as smooth hands ran over his body and made him feel—but they were gone long before he left the haze and wasn’t entirely certain it was real.
He came out of it to one of the keys to his rooms missing and a delicate silver rose on his pillow. It was uncomfortable, but, well, he might’ve just lost one key and made something. Curufin had been known to do similar drunk. Nothing had happened beyond him trying to feel okay. Nothing.
The next was . . . significantly less comfortable to find. He couldn’t pretend it was something he’d done himself, and that terrified him. The day before he’d spent hours working on this one piece, reshaping the setting and cutting the gem over and over but never getting it right, until he set it aside in disgust with the assumption of coming back to it. But it was there. Sitting innocently on his pillow. Completed.
Celebrimbor leapt up and ran to his forge, finding everything tidied up . . . and the piece missing. He sunk to the ground, gripping the piece until it cut sharp lines in his palm and blood dripped down onto the floor, and tried to breathe.
And it kept. Happening. He struggled with something? It was fixed the next morning. He left a mess? It was neatened when he wasn’t there. It was just . . . a constant invasion of his space, and he didn’t know who or how or why but it made him want to cry. Cry and panic and just—Celebrimbor had made the mistake of crying himself to sleep one day under the stress of this and the rest of his life, and woke up to a warm indent next to him on his bed, clearly just abandoned when they saw him shifting. They’d slept next to him. They’d slept next to him and he hadn’t noticed. What else might they have done?
It started affecting the rest of his life then. He spent half his life looking over his shoulder, wondering, half in terror, who might be his . . . unasked for guest. Celebrimbor hadn’t had many friends to begin with, but now he got more and more uncomfortable looks from people and found it even harder to interact with them. They could scare him by walking behind him without making a lot of noise. His work suffered as well—only leading to more stress as his guest ‘helpfully’ left hints as to where he’d gone wrong.
They even worked.
Celebrimbor reached his breaking point and ran, willing to bargain his abilities and break with his father to get access to Gondolin. And . . . it worked. They didn’t follow him there. He had to practically give away his work and put up with abuse from citizens for his family, but it was worth it. He didn’t have to look over his shoulder every five minutes and live in dread of what he would wake up to. He wasn’t constantly anxious. It was almost peaceful.
And then his cousin made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that he wasn’t welcome there any more. Too many things had happened with his family to be allowed haven any more. It caused problems.
Celebrimbor left in dread.
He managed to install himself in Sirion without any problems other than the expected familial kind. He even managed a few months untouched by any unwanted visitors. His anxiety over moving felt almost unwarranted; the . . . watcher must have been left in Nargothrond.
And then Celebrimbor woke up to a hand on his pillow.
A hand. A horribly, terrifyingly familiar hand. He’d known that hand. Its owner hand tossed him in the air as a kid, spent hours watching him when the rest were unavailable, been one of his favorites to spend time with, told him stories and comforted him while he was sick.
He puked uncontrollably over the edge of his bed, not able to move any further before it came up and up and up. His throat burned but that was—that was his uncle’s hand. His watcher, someone who’d watched him sleep and live and left him things, had had his uncle’s hand. Had left it for him to find. Had almost certainly done it because he’d disappeared from easily-accessible areas.
Either it was someone who had no problem picking a hand out of whatever heap it had ended up in, or it was—it was—Celebrimbor threw up again—it was one of the Enemy’s servants.
Oh Eru.
The thought chilled him to the core and he acted without thinking. Changed his locks, added new, took to sleeping as little as possible and in as unusual as places as possible. Anything to try to keep them out.
None of it worked.
His locks made no difference, and every time he fell asleep out of exhaustion they deposited him back in his bed. More than once Celebrimbor woke up to a warm spot wrapped around him or a drawing of him sleeping and it—it messed him up. He couldn’t escape it. None of his attempts worked. He just . . . he wanted it to stop.
It didn’t, because why would it? That would require someone caring about his wellbeing. No, it escalated. With the ever increasing war as a backdrop, Celebrimbor’s watcher picked up the pace. More than once he woke up to an injury. Most often seemingly inflicted by nails, but some days they clearly felt inventive. It sucked. He’d almost rather they go back to vague threatening presents and watching.
This made him want anything else.
And then they disappeared.
.
Centuries later, Annatar had a tendency towards watching him sleep and doing little things for him and Celebrimbor—he just couldn’t bring himself to explain why it terrified him so.