A realization that strikes them each rather differently, as it transpires.
“You’re churning,” Makalaurë observed, as Maitimo did another length of the carpet. “If you keep it up like that you’re going to wear a spot in Grandmother’s rug and you know Father will get the pained line between his brows.”
“Grandmother’s carpets don’t wear,” said Maitimo, executing another pivot and striding back towards the hearth. “Valar, perhaps I should take a page from her book and just sleep until I am never seen again.”
“That’s a little overwrought,” said Makalaurë, a phrase which from his mouth would usually be enough to shake Maitimo from his turmoil to observe dramatic irony in action. “So you have been kissing Findekáno in the garden, so what?”
“Not just in the garden,” said Maitimo, running a hand through his hair and then stopping as it reminded him of Findekáno’s touch. And not just kissing, he didn’t add. “Also on the veranda, by the canal, under the bridge, next to the peach vendor…”
“So what? What of that is so bad that you need to banish yourself to Námo’s realm rather than continue? I know it’s embarrassing to have an infatuation, especially with someone so…buoyant, but it’s not like Findekáno’s hideous.”
That brought Maitimo to a halt. “He’s not hideous at all,” he said, frowning. “Why would one be embarrassed to be seen with him? He is handsome and well-built, noble and full of life, fun-loving and kind, and why say you ‘buoyant’ as if it is something shameful? He has energy, certainly, but it is of the sort that uplifts rather than wearies and a quality most befitting a prince. Stop laughing,” he said, annoyed, as Makalaurë chortled from the divan. “It is not the optics that concern me – well, not entirely – but it is precisely what you say!”
“What do I say,” said Makalaurë, composing himself.
“Infatuation,” said Maitimo wretchedly. “To him I am but an early crush realized, a light and happy affair to look back on fondly when we are old and wed to others. I thought I could bear it, could stand to suffer the kisses and – and other things, by the peaches and so on, but…”
“But?” prompted Makalaurë, his smile fading.
“I think I love him.” Maitimo sank down, missing the ottoman by a good foot, and landed on Míriel’s weaving with a clatter of long limbs. He folded forward and buried his head in his arms. “Help me, whatever shall I do? He cannot know, he mustn’t, I should not put such pressures on him but brother…” Maitimo lifted red-rimmed eyes. “I cannot take this torment much longer.”
“So,” said Irissë, running wax over her bowstring. “You and Maitimo, eh. How’s that going?”
“Excellent,” said Findekáno, wiping glue from his fletching. “I shall marry that man someday.”
Tag: russingon
I got an anon prompting me for more Fingros. I’ll get to it soon (…it’s a good prompt!) but clearly I’ve been letting the side down so here’s some garbage I wrote ages ago for partner in crime @imindhowwelayinjune while we were doing Treat Me Soft. It’s literally just this but with the OTP. Sorry not sorry.
“Alright,” Fingon said, hoping he sounded soothing and not vaguely panicked. The surgeries were done. No complications, the healers had assured him. Everything had gone as well as could be expected and Maedhros was as healthy as anyone in his situation could be. Which was not close to healthy enough, Fingon thought, his heart aching. “Eat the lembas.“
“You always were my favourite nephew,” Fingolfin said, once they knew Fingon would live.
It was patently untrue and had Galadriel hissing like a kettle come to boil and Curufin pursing his lips against a smile. Maedhros, fresh from rinsing clots of his cousin’s blood out of his hair, thanked him gravely and moved the subject on, to the matter of kingdoms and supplies.
“Fool,” Curufin snapped afterwards. “We can use this. The crown-”
“Is something we are well rid of.” Our priority is the Oath, he would have added, not long ago. “Fingon will not take well to being maimed,” he said instead. “If you’re so concerned with winning hearts, see what you can do for him.”
“It was not so bad as all that,” Fingon insisted, when he was well enough to insist upon anything. “Merely dull.”
“Boredom was the worst torture they could imagine for you, no doubt,” Maedhros said and held him through the nightmares without comment. It was, perhaps, the worst torture he could imagine for himself but that was a maudlin, self-indulgent thing to think.
“The ballad that I shall make of this!” Maglor cried. All his resentment over being left to rule as regent had vanished in the face of such a song. “A light of hope, blazing against the dark! A triumph of love and loyalty over wicked cruelty!”
Maedhros remembered well the eagle’s words and remembered too that Morgoth’s followers were loyal. He let Maglor have his song though, for they were in desperate need of hope and because it would likely annoy Fingon a great deal.
“I cannot believe you let them make a song of it,” said Fingon, greatly annoyed. “Fingon the Valiant they called me and yet in this great accounting of Noldorin deeds I am a useless, swooning lump. First my hand and now my epithet. What will you steal from me next?”
“Keep the Valiant,” Maedhros said soberly. “But add that stuffed horse I never returned to the tally of my crimes.”
“Do not think I have forgotten. Cloppy will be avenged once I can wield a sword again.” That Fingon could and would learn to fight with his left had not been in doubt since the moment he first woke.
There were apologies to be made. For the ice and the docks and for not being handier with a file. But when Maedhros opened his mouth and saw the look on Fingon’s fair, scarred face, he knew they would not be welcome. He kissed Fingon instead, and that was accepted with unprincely enthusiasm.
Love was not sufficient reason for so many things. But for some it was.
The night before Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the battle of unnumbered tears.
We all needed to see Fingon blushing…
This is a gift for my dear friend @gultgull ♥
in valinor
After a long wait
for a beloved friend from
the Halls of Mandos.Встреча после долгого-долгого ожидания любимого друга из Чертогов. Когда и слов нет, и все как-то неловко, но…снова рядом. Уже навсегда.
The Naming of Fingon the Valiant.
if you ask maedhros how they met, he’ll tell you about a fight on the silver-lit streets of tirion, about the scrapes and bruises of a drunken scuffle (because my brothers are asses and fools, and i am forever cleaning up their messes) and he will tell you about the boy with gold in his unraveling braids who blackened his eye and broke his nose.
he’ll say that for at least a century after that night, fingon hated him.
that sometimes, across a crowded square, at formal dinners, in the wild rustling woods and valleys, maedhros would catch a glimpse of his cousin’s face, and he would think: here is a boy who will make his father proud, here is a child of the house of finwe.
if you ask, maedhros will shrug and say that fingon was the only one of his cousins worth fighting, that one day they realized they could go to war with the world, instead of one another.
but if you ask fingon, he’ll say that he loved maedhros from the first moment he saw him, bright and untamed under the light of telperion; centuries old, and still young enough (fey with blood and his father’s spirit) to laugh when fingon broke his nose.
just moving along like everyone else 