So here's the thing: Ereinion is possibly, maybe, at the very least conceivably, not his actual name.

It could be! It might. He doesn't actually know, seeing as how both his parents managed to get themselves killed before he was old enough for what they were actually calling him to stick.

He thinks they died, at least. He's pretty sure they didn't just leave him because food was scarce and a crying baby's the last thing you need when you're trying to hide from orcs in the dark as you run -

Anyway! That's not the point. The point is that he might have a name that means scion of kings.

And it's not like he can go around using the first name he actually remembers being called.

Being found by a group of the Secondborn before he could die of exposure was a good thing. Being called the first elvish name they could remember was not, mainly because that name happened to be Feanor. All they knew about him was that his star was on an elvish weapon their chief carried. He's just lucky he found out more before someone with a grudge against Feanor found out about it.

Or one of his sons. He's honestly not sure which would have been worse.

So - Ereinion. He picks it because it sounds grand, and it makes people make assumptions that are not "possibly orphaned, possibly abandoned baby that was raised by a bunch of Secondborn that called themselves nomads, but who were, upon reflection, probably bandits." He also gets a lot of girls smiling at him, as opposed to a lot of ticked off Feanorians punching him in the face. Between the two, he'll definitely pick the girls.

(He shows up at Nargothrond covered in blood. Everyone he knows is dead, and he couldn't save them because they didn't heal like he does, and they weren't as fast as him when they fought, and the orcs have taken everything from him again, and he can barely breathe, let alone think -

He's barely met any other elves, and now he's in a city of them, and it becomes painfully clear within about two minutes that he's nothing like them at all. Thankfully, they all think it's blood loss causing the issue.

And he grew up with a group of probably-bandits, that sometimes took and sometimes tricked, and he was raised to trick travelers into thinking he was one of them to prepare the way for an ambush, making distractions and diversions, giving out false names to confuse the rumors and doing whatever it takes to survive.

He survived before. He'll survive this too.)

Apparently, he's charming and novel. He can work with both.

Also apparently, there's so many descendants of Finwe floating around that are refusing to talk to each other that Finrod hears his name, jumps to conclusions, and welcomes him.

This is simultaneously the best opportunity and the worst idea he's ever had.

He rolls with it.

(He doesn't understand the other elves. He hates being trapped inside. He has no idea what he's going to do if there's ever a big reconciliation and he's caught out.

He throws himself into studying in the library in a desperate attempt to catch up with what everyone else already knows. They start calling him studious. Knowledgeable. Wise, even, after he offhandedly uses a legal tidbit that apparently everyone else didn't already have memorized to solve an argument.

Finrod is very kind. He tries sometimes to empathize with whatever family trouble drove him here.

My family is dead, he thinks, trying not to remember the way the blood had covered the road, and my parents might be too. Assuming they didn't abandon me.

He doesn't tell Finrod that, of course.)

It works. That's the point. It works. Even with Finrod de- gone, it works.

When Nargothrond falls, he thinks that's it, except somehow a group of survivors have gathered around him and started calling him Gil-Galad.

His first thought is, I don't know what to do, and then he's almost horrified to realize that after so long using this mask, he actually does.

And he can't just leave them, can he?

He briefly considers trying to convert them to banditry.

He leads them to Cirdan instead.

(He thought they'd be safe there. He'd thought he could hand them off, fade back into obscurity, choose a different mask. This one had long served its purpose. It was time for it to go.

Cirdan greets him as an equal, and he realizes with horror that it's far, far, far too late to back out now.)

"I beg your pardon," he says blankly to the messenger.

"The High King of the Noldor is dead," the messenger repeats grimly. He's just marched in from the ruins of Gondolin with the other survivors. He hasn't bothered to wash the dried blood from his tunic. "The king is dead," he repeats. "Long live the king."

What king? he almost demands, and then the coin drops.

I'm not even sure I'm Noldor! he wants to scream. This was a con, a con, do you understand me? It was never supposed to go this far!

What he actually says is, "Surely there's someone ahead of me in line."

There's … the Feanorians. But after Doriath, no one's going to go for that.

There's … Idril?

The messenger is shaking his head, though, so apparently no one's going to go for that either.

He's going to be king. Of the Noldor.

And the worst part is, part of him's already thinking of how to help the refugees from Gondolin integrate, how this affects the war as a whole, how everyone's going to react to this announcement.

He's king, and he's not sure if he's just pulled off the greatest con of his life, or if he should find a way to go back in time and tell his younger self to just admit to his real name and let himself get punched.

He thinks of what's happened to every previous king of the Noldor and decides that it's definitely the latter.