Chapter Text
Despite the widespread assumptions concerning his age and origins, Maedhros was privately convinced that his current body was actually substantially younger than the body he had died in.
The reduced number of scars and pains was an obvious sign, but the length of his hair was the most certain indicator. It was short, just below his shoulder blades and barely long enough for his war braids.
In Aman, most elves lived thousands of years without once cutting their hair. To cut one’s hair was a thing done only to show great shame or sorrow.
Maedhros’ hair had been this short four times in his adult life.
After Thangorodrim. (His current body was too healthy to be from that time.)
After the Nirnaeth. (Too many scars to be that young.)
After Doriath. (Doriath was more probable; some of those scars he definitely had, and they looked new still.)
After Sirion. (His right knee worked too well still for it to be after Sirion.)
So: his post-Doriath body he decided it must be, and if Maedhros sat closer to the fire that night and hugged a complaining Fëanáro a little longer than normal, well. No one else needed to know why.
***
The host had been camped beside the Sea of Rhûn for most of three years when Velek padded silently into Finwë’s central sitting room carrying an armful of scrolls.
“Maps are back,” he announced, unceremoniously dumping them onto the table by Maedhros’ elbow, “ah, excuse me, my lord.”
Finwë grunted around a mouthful of hairpins, his hands busy with Maedhros’ hair.
Maedhros had yet to discover a good way to braid his own hair one-handed. Before, he had usually had a brother or cousin near to hand for help. On the occasions they were absent, Erestor would materialize wordlessly with a comb and fix his braids with the same ruthless efficiency he applied to his stewardship of Maedhros’ household.
Here, among strangers, Maedhros had at first simply defaulted to leaving his hair combed but unbound. That had lasted until Fëanáro noticed and immediately bullied Maedhros into letting him help with his hair. Unbeknownst to Maedhros, Fëanáro’s only experience with braiding another elf’s hair came from learning to do his mother’s when he was very small, and the only hairstyle he knew how to work was the simple twist-crown that marked a High Lady of the Noldor.
Finwë had almost choked trying not to laugh when Fëanáro had trotted Maedhros out and proudly displayed his handiwork. Fëanáro now knew how to plait a regular warrior’s braid, but it was still common for whichever of Finwë’s household got to Maedhros first in the morning (usually Finwë or Halla) to help him with his hair instead.
Maedhros secretly enjoyed the little patchwork of hairstyles he was accruing. Halla’s style was the closest approximation of his original war braids, but with four neat strands intertwined near his temples for loyalty and duty. Finwë usually left most of his hair free but braided intricate patterns normally reserved for respected elders above his ears. He had recently started sneaking in blue and purple beads that marked Maedhros as a member of Finwë’s family. Eressëndil did his hair only rarely, but his style was Maedhros’s favorite: a simple servant’s rope braid twined with golden wire for valor and midnight blue ribbons for mourning.
“Maps,” said Maedhros, turning his head carefully towards the table, “from Olwë’s sailors? Or the scouts?”
“Lord Olwë’s,” Velek said, and unrolled a scroll to show a stretch of coastline annotated with wind and current markings, “the rest of the scouts will no doubt reappear some years from now, having lost the maps but befriended ten new species of tree and several colors of butterfly.”
Maedhros nodded solemnly, “We really do need to stop calling it the Great Journey.”
Velek grinned, “What should we call it instead, ‘short periods of meandering vaguely Aman-wards, interspersed with longer periods of getting distracted by the mating rituals of insects’?”
“More like ‘the mating rituals of elves’,” Halla grumbled, taking a loud sip of tea and poking through the maps with one finger, “we make it to one lake, and suddenly everyone wants to stop and pop out offspring. We don’t even know how much farther we’ve got left.”
“Far,” Maedhros said, without thinking.
Halla and Velek turned slowly to stare at him. Maedhros shrugged his shoulders and blinked innocently back.
“Quit moving around so much,” said Finwë, tugging on Maedhros’ ear reprovingly, “I’m trying to fix this rat’s nest you have growing on top of your head. It looks like something gnawed on your hair and then regurgitated leaves onto it.”
“Hmm.”
Finwë delicately removed a clump of damp leaves with two fingers, then narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“‘Hmm’, is it? Why would you ‘hmm’ in this context?”
Maedhros appeared to be suddenly engrossed in reading the scrolls, but the corners of his mouth were twitching.
Finwë froze. “Oh absolutely not,” he said, wiping his fingers off hurriedly on Maedhros’ tunic, “please, please, please tell me my son did not actually put chewed-up leaves in your hair.”
“The young lord has been gathering information lately,” Velek said, carefully not looking up from the paper in front of him, “he seems particularly interested in the construction methods used by paper wasps.”
“Experiments are still ongoing,” Maedhros said mildly, “apparently the structural integrity is a work in progress.”
“But in your hair? Why would you let him try to make a wasp nest in your hair?”
“He promised to start calling me ‘the Wasp King’ if I let him experiment on me,” Maedhros said, completely straight-faced, “I believe he had some kind of vision for a ‘fabulous crown to strike fear into the hearts of my foes’.”
“That’s what your face is for,” Finwë said grumpily, and pulled free another twig.
Halla tipped back in her chair, laughing so hard she had to put her tea cup down. Velek was hunched nearly in half trying to hide his laughter behind the curtain of his own silver hair.
“Betrayal,” Maedhros intoned solemnly, “the Wasp King is surrounded and betrayed on all sides. How shall I ever go on?”
***
The settlement by the Sea of Rhûn was hardly more than a sprawling collection of villages along the edge of the lake, dirt streets and rough-laid stone and the smell of fresh lumber and tar. It reminded Maedhros of some of the early cities of Men he had visited in Beleriand; the straggling lines of new fields, the bustle and clatter of the Teleri’s shipyards, the laughter of barefooted elflings chasing chickens in the marketplace. The Kings’ Houses rose on the top of the hill overlooking the water, pale wood and white stone bright against the green grass.
For all that a part of him chafed at the delay in the journey, Maedhros could appreciate this small pocket of peace in the middle of greater plans.
This was no forced march of an army racing against the clock; here there was space for wonder and exploration, for seeking and finding, for planting and sowing and shipbuilding, for making love and raising elflings.
“Not that I’m making love, mind you,” Maedhros said, arching an eyebrow at Ingwë as they walked together through the new central marketplace, “but it’s fairly obvious the rest of you are.”
Ingwë groaned and hid his face in his hands.
“Ah, to be young and in love,” Maedhros grinned, and patted him condescendingly on the back.
Ingwë feinted a swat and then lunged; Maedhros dropped his stance lower and used the smaller elf’s own momentum to heft him over one shoulder.
Ingwë squawked indignantly and wriggled, “Unhand me, fiend!”
“I’m already partially un-handed, I don’t know that I’d recommend it to anyone else,” Maedhros said, squinting as if in thought, and continued to walk towards the Kings’ Houses as though he was not carrying one of the High Kings of the Eldar over his shoulder as easily as he might carry Fëanáro.
“Speaking of being young and in love,” Ingwë said, slumping dramatically against Maedhros’ back as they approached the broad stone stairs to the top of the hill, “Finwë.”
“No, I am not secretly his scandalous paramour,” Maedhros said blithely, “have you been reading the stories the kitchen maids are circulating?”
Ingwë perked up, immediately intrigued, “Wait, they’re actually writing this stuff down?”
“Oh yes, Halla has a whole collection of them that she’s confiscated. I’m sure she’d share if you asked.”
“Halla is a jewel among women,” Ingwë said gleefully, “but you know that wasn’t what I meant. I need you to do something.”
Maedhros sighed and took the stairs two at a time.
“I take it this is about the way he and your sister have been gazing soulfully at each other every time they think no one is looking?”
“It’s like they think the rest of us don’t have eyes,” Ingwë agreed, thunking his forehead despairingly against Maedhros’ rib cage, “the pining is getting ridiculous.”
Maedhros bent and tipped Ingwë off onto the pale stone of the Kings’ forecourt.
“And what exactly do you expect me to do about it?”
“I don’t know, something? Anything? Indis is convinced that she can’t have him because he’s already married, but Míriel is gone and from what she said to Finwë before she faded, it didn’t sound like she would be coming back.”
Maedhros was silent for a long moment, then, very softly, “Not everyone can come back from certain things, and some pains never heal.”
Ingwë shot him a startled look, “Ah. Well. I don’t know what to do, Indis doesn’t know what to do, I can guarantee Finwë doesn’t know what to do. The Valar told us that our dead may return from the Halls of Mandos when they are ready, but none of us know when to expect that, or if Míriel will ever be ready.”
He rubbed the back of his head helplessly, “I want them all to be happy, I just don’t know if that can even happen.”
“Understandable.”
Ingwë widened his eyes hopefully, “So you’ll bring it up with the Valar for me?”
Maedhros flicked him in the forehead, “Since when did I become your personal errand boy to the Powers?”
“I’ll call you the Wasp King whenever Finwë is in earshot for the next year? It makes his eye twitch every time.”
“Deal.”