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- Nov 28, 2022
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For my Lómion (and Íri and Tyelko), @Tyelkormo the Fair
~~~
Other kingdoms were starting to celebrate spring by now, but not Himring. It felt so unfair. Even Tyelko wrote to Maitimo from Himlad that the grass was starting to get green again and he was able to let his animals out to graze. But this was not the case in Himring. The ground was still rock-hard there, and the kingdom was continually pummeled with dump after dump of snow.
Maitimo and Lómion both sat in the study. Maitimo quietly worked at his desk to draft some important letters, and Lómion sat at the window seat with a law textbook. He had given up on trying to concentrate on the material, and instead he gazed moodily at the increasingly dark sky.
“It’s going to snow soon. I can feel it,” Maitimo said with a sigh, rubbing his shoulder, which always tended to ache worse whenever a storm rolled in.
Lómion was so lost in his thoughts that he did not hear or respond.
Noticing this, Maitimo put his quill pen down and glanced at him. “Lómion?”
Lómion jumped and nearly dropped his book. “Yes, Ada?”
“Are you alright?”
Lómion only shrugged and returned his gaze to the window, which caused Maitimo to frown slightly in concern. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
Maitimo folded his arms and tilted his head, clearly indicating his skepticism. “You know if you want to talk about it, I’m happy to listen. But if not, that’s fine.”
Lómion blurted out, against his better judgment, “My begetting day is in three days.”
Maitimo nodded slowly. He had seen enough loss and suffering in life to understand why this was a thing to be upset about rather than celebrated.
Though Lómion already felt guilty, he couldn’t stop the following words from tumbling out of his mouth as well. “I was keeping it secret from you. Because I know you’re all… nice and caring and all that… and you probably want to throw a ball for me or something similarly fancy. But I… I don’t feel much like celebrating. I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize. I understand completely.” Maitimo left his seat at the desk and came beside Lómion on the window seat, and put his arm around his shoulders. “I remember my first begetting day after I was rescued. I didn’t… exactly want to celebrate that either. My brothers and cousins, bless them, tried to make it nice for me. They decorated my tent with flowers and made me a little tart with rare berries. But I hated all of it. Eating was still difficult and painful, I looked like a nightmare and felt even worse, and I wasn’t sure I’d be anything other than crippled and maimed and bedridden for the rest of my life. So, I wanted to curse the day of my birth, not celebrate it.”
Seeing the horrified and perhaps even ashamed look on Lómion’s face, Maitimo winced, wondering if he had said too much. So, he tried to backtrack. “But even if I hadn’t been to Angband, those celebrations would have still been hard. We had lost our grandfather, our father, and our home itself. Our life was different, and not in a good way. To celebrate without those we had lost would have felt… wrong. Is that how you’re feeling?”
Lómion’s words felt locked up in his throat, but he nodded, buried his face in Maitimo’s shoulder and sobbed.
They shared moments like these often. Though it had been many months since the tragic loss of Aredhel, the pain was not diminished, especially not for her son.
Maitimo didn’t say a word, and only held Lómion tightly and rubbed his back until he sighed, pulled away and wiped his eyes.
“Will you let me do a little something, though?” Maitimo asked with a gentle smile. “There will be no grand celebration, and I won’t go around telling people of the occasion. I promise, you won’t notice my preparations at all. But I’d rather you not spend the day languishing in misery, and… I always love a chance to spoil my family, even if only a little.”
Perhaps Lómion was too worn out from his weeping to argue, but he couldn’t help but smile at the hopeful look on his Ada’s face. “Alright, fine. But promise me you won’t make it too fancy—”
“I promise.”
“—and that you won’t embarrass me.”
Maitimo only gave a thoughtful hum. “That… I’m not so sure I can promise.”
Lómion rolled his eyes and did his very best to look irritated as Maitimo laughed and ruffled his hair. But he couldn’t stop his twitching lips from eventually forming a smile.
“There’s one more thing I need you to promise,” Lómion said, turning his face away before Maitimo could see his smile. “If you’re going to bake something, you can’t put pistachios in it.”
Maitimo only blinked in confusion at the completely random change of subject.
“I, uh…” Lómion ducked his head a little and lowered his gaze, “I’m allergic. Very allergic.”
Maitimo was not one to break his word, and sure enough, Lómion didn’t notice any of his preparations. In fact, he entirely forgot the conversation about his begetting day, even on the day of. He didn’t remember his own begetting day until he was in the middle of listening to Maitimo explain how Lómion was to accompany him to a meeting with Lord Preston of Doriath.
“Wait a second,” Lómion blurted. “Is this seriously what you had planned for my begetting day celebration?”
Maitimo was clearly trying to keep a straight face, but his lips twitched with a suppressed smirk. “You did say you didn’t want a big fuss about it, and I agreed. We also both agreed you are not to spend the day languishing in misery.”
“So you’re putting me to work? With the snottiest lord in Beleriand?”
“Don’t worry, the meeting shouldn’t take long… depending on how long he talks, anyway.” Maitimo gave Lómion a confident pat on the shoulder before opening the door to the parlor. There, a thin Sinda with limp blond hair, a slightly upturned nose, and pouty lips, sat primly on a sofa with a teacup.
“Lord Maedhros,” he said snidely, “I have been waiting for quite a while. My tea has gotten lukewarm.”
“I am very sorry you had to suffer such a great discomfort,” Maitimo said dryly. Lómion snorted and tried to keep a straight face himself. If there was one thing he appreciated in life, it was Sarcasm.
“And who is this… young chap?” the snotty lord demanded, as though he didn’t hear Maitimo’s remark.
“This is Prince Maeglin, my son.”
Preston’s bored expression grew slightly more intrigued, as though he had added a fine addition to his collection of gossip. “Your son, I see? I can’t help but notice he looks quite different than you. Forgive me, my lord, but according to the public records, I do not recall you ever being—”
“You are forgiven for your prying.” Maitimo cut the lord off and folded his arms, gazing at him unamused. Lómion glanced up at Maitimo before folding his arms as well and offering Preston a salty glare of his own.
And contrary to Maitimo’s implication that the meeting might take a while, he settled the diplomatic business with Preston as swiftly as though he were knocking aside a weak opponent’s sword. An agreement was made and the meeting ended within ten minutes. Maitimo never even sat down or took any tea, and Lómion never had to say a word. So then, what was the point of all this?
After they dismissed Preston, only then did Maitimo sit down and send for some tea. He looked considerably irritated, which only added to Lómion’s confusion.
“I’m sorry. That didn’t go at all how I had planned,” Maitimo explained before Lómion could voice his questions. “I had hoped to give you an opportunity to practice some diplomatic speaking, against an opponent with whom I permit some use of sarcasm. Preston deserves whatever sarcasm you have coming to him, clearly. But given how he couldn’t seem to refrain from expressing his curiosity over our personal business, I thought it better to handle it all myself.”
“Ah, that’s all right.” Lómion shrugged. “But I still think it’s a strange begetting day present.”
“That’s because it wasn’t a present. It was supposed to be a means of keeping you occupied… wait a minute. Lómion, are you saying you do want me to do something special for you after all?”
“I never said I didn’t!”
“Well, then… good thing I already did!” Maitimo smiled as, at that moment, a servant girl arrived, carrying a tray filled with not only tea, but also cookies. These smelled of honey and were filled with sweet berries.
In his life with Aredhel and Eöl, sugar and even honey had been a rare treat for Lómion. But now, living in a house of a former king, Lómion had become quite the cookie afficionado. He could tell right away these hadn’t come from the kitchen chefs. Rather than being perfectly round, they were a little uneven, and they lacked the pristine frosting which normally came from the skilled artisans in the kitchen.
But Lómion liked this about them, because that meant he knew exactly where they came from.
“No pistachios,” Maitimo said with a wink.
“I appreciate you not trying to kill me,” Lómion said with a faint smile as he reached for a cookie. “It sure is an upgrade over my last adar, if I can even call him that.”
Maitimo chuckled. Before his time in Angband, he would have been horrified and concerned by such a joke. But after spending decades in torment, he had learned a thing or two about dark humor, and this was something he and Lómion understood about each other.
Lómion bit into the cookie. With its blend of rich honey and warm spices, he could only describe it as tasting like a hug.
“Thanks, Ada.” Lómion’s smile broadened. “It’s very you. I still don’t know how you manage to bake with one hand. How do you even crack an egg?”
“I can show you sometime. It’s not that hard; it just takes practice.”
Throughout their conversation, Maitimo had noticed something different about Lómion, something he couldn’t quite put a finger on. His stare looked somehow moodier than usual, which was saying something. But at the same time, he seemed cheerful and in a relatively light mood, and his expression did not otherwise betray any dark or despondent feelings.
Finally, Maitimo figured it out.
Eyeliner.
“Lómion! Are you wearing eyeliner?” he exclaimed.
Lómion’s charcoal-lined eyes widened and a flush came to his cheeks. He fidgeted awkwardly in his seat. “It’s, uh, just an experiment, Ada—”
“It’s alright. I don’t have a problem with it,” Maitimo reassured him, more saddened than amused by Lómion’s sudden nervousness. Surely, whenever he dressed or presented himself in a way Eöl didn’t like, he must have paid the consequences. And even though Lómion knew full well that Maitimo wasn’t Eöl—nothing like him, in fact—those instincts of fear remained in his body.
“My brothers Maglor and Curufin like to wear it too,” Maitimo continued, hoping to distract Lómion out of his anxiety. “And they both picked up the habit from our adar. He liked to use bits of charcoal to line his eyes, and our mother seemed to like it a lot when he did that.”
Maitimo smiled wistfully at the memory of when he and Laurë, as small Elflings, had once decided to spy on their parents in the forge. Nerdanel had traced a finger around some of the smoky lining of Fëanáro’s eyes, and then pulled him in for a passionate kiss… Maitimo and Makalaurë had run away screaming. They had learned that day it wasn’t so fun to spy on their parents after all. And the other brothers all had to learn that same lesson in their own timing.
“I did notice that about Uncle Curufin,” Lómion said quietly.
“Is that where you got the idea?”
Lómion only shrugged innocently, and Maitimo smiled and patted his shoulder before standing up. But just then, he got a horrible idea. What if Lómion was wearing the eyeliner because he wanted to impress an elleth? Not that Maitimo knew of any young lady around here who had caught Lómion’s attention, but what if there was one running around unbeknownst to him? Maitimo had only just become an adopted parent to this young ellon! He wasn’t ready for this!
Shaking the thought aside, he said, “Come on. There’s one more thing I have planned for you, and it’s the most important thing of all.”
Hesitant to receive any more attention, yet unable to resist his curiosity, Lómion nodded and followed Maitimo out the door.
They left the castle and trudged through the half-melted sludge on the ground. Without a word, Lómion held Maitimo’s arm as they walked. The terrain was rough and slippery, and Maitimo still walked with a slight limp thanks to Eöl. It had only been a few months since those horrific events, and though Maitimo liked to think he was fully recovered and could do everything he normally could, the idea of him walking through all this snow and mud made Lómion a little nervous.
Maitimo, picking up on this, glanced at Lómion with a sheepish yet grateful smile.
They eventually came to the garden. This was a neatly arranged landscape surrounded by a low brick wall covered with vines, though the vines still looked like drab sticks at this time of year. There were no signs of flowers yet; their reserved plots were still full of nothing but mud and snow. The trees here were not budding yet, so they still looked dull and skeletal, bowed under the weight of melting snow. A cold drop from one of them landed right on the tip of Lómion’s nose, and he yelped. Maitimo chuckled and offered him a clean handkerchief.
“Some begetting day,” Lómion grumbled. “First you make me help you deal with a snotlord, and then you make me snotty myself!”
He blew his nose into the handkerchief. Cold weather always had a way of making his nose run.
“Don’t worry. You could catch a mortal man’s head cold and still be nowhere near as snotty as Lord Preston,” Maitimo said with a solemn nod.
Lómion couldn’t help but crack a smile. And then, for the first time that day—maybe several days—he laughed.
They came to an unassuming corner of the garden, with nothing in it except a decently large plot of dirt. Maitimo reached into a hidden pocket in his cloak and pulled out a tree sapling.
Lómion tried not to look as unamused as he felt. If this was some sort of flowering tree, especially a pink one—
“Don’t worry, I think you’re going to like this one,” Maitimo said, as though he knew Lómion’s thoughts. “I’ve been wanting to fill this space of the garden with something, and I also want you to have more places you can call your own here. This is a weeping willow, and I would like you to have it. It may not look like much now, or even for a few years, but over time, it will grow thick and full. It will have such thick coverage that if you hide under its branches, no one will see you.”
Hiding from people? Lómion was sold!
Maitimo didn’t even have to say another word before Lómion found a small garden shovel sitting nearby and started to dig a little hole for the tree. “I just wish it could grow up now so I can start hiding from people now,” he admitted.
“Well, the best time to plant a tree is twenty-five years ago, as the saying goes. But you still have lots of growing to do, Lómion, and I look forward to watching this tree grow along with you.”
Lómion smirked and paused his digging to glance up at Maitimo. “Ada, you’re such a sap!”
“Ah, your uncle Curufin would love you forever if he heard you make such a pun!” Maitimo grinned and handed Lómion the sapling, and he placed it in the ground and filled the hole with dirt. He then patted the ground with surprising tenderness.
The memory he had been suppressing all week once again rose to the surface of his mind. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it or even think about it because it was too painful. And he still didn’t entirely want to, but planting this sapling made him think of the beautiful tree by which his nana was buried, and… it seemed unfair to leave her out of this celebration when she had worked so hard and risked so much to make his every begetting day special in the past.
Before he could convince himself otherwise, he spoke in a cracked voice.
“Nana used to do a special hunt for me. Every year. There were times when Ad—Eöl, I mean—either was angry at me and wanted to deprive me of a celebration, or on the other extreme, he wanted to be fully in charge of my celebration and leave Nana out of it. So Nana couldn’t often give me a gift or bake me a special treat, but she could always hunt. Eöl couldn’t tell her no, after all. We always needed to eat, and she was a far better hunter than he ever was, and even he had no choice but to realize that. So every year, Nana’s challenge was that she would catch me something bigger than she did last year. So she started off small with squirrels and rabbits when I was an Elfling. Then eventually she started catching big birds like pheasants. And last year, a year ago today, she caught me a huge stag. Bigger than anything I’d ever seen in my life. She hauled it home all by herself, too. I asked her how she would possibly manage to find something bigger next year. She laughed and said she’d find a way, but… she never did…”
Lómion turned his face away from Maitimo and wiped his face again, pretending he was just wiping his nose. But a strong pair of arms closed in around him.
Lómion never could fool Maitimo, even if he attempted to fool himself into thinking he didn’t need any help.
They shared a long moment in silence, with Lómion crying into Maitimo’s shoulder. He hated how often he needed to do this. Well-meaning people often told Lómion time would heal all wounds, but so far at least, he was discovering this to be quite untrue. But the good news—the only good news—was that now Lómion had a father who was always happy to lend a shoulder to cry on, no matter how many times Lómion needed it. Maitimo didn’t seem tired of it yet, and maybe he never would be till the end of time.
Finally pulling away, Lómion wiped his face again and sighed when he saw the smudges of black on the handkerchief. He had cried most of his eyeliner off, apparently.
“You know,” he said quietly to Maitimo, “I don’t actually mind—that much, anyway—when you embarrass me or say cheesy sentimental things.”
“Good,” Maitimo said, smiling and ruffling his hair. “Because I am obligated to do those things once in a while.”
“Once in a while? You do them all the time!”
Maitimo shrugged and nodded, admitting defeat.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m cold,” he said, standing. “And you need to fix your eyeliner.”
Lómion rolled his eyes and stood up as well, taking Maitimo’s arm once again. “Fine.”
But by “fine,” he actually meant: Thanks, Ada. I love you, and I’m proud to be your son.
~~~
Other kingdoms were starting to celebrate spring by now, but not Himring. It felt so unfair. Even Tyelko wrote to Maitimo from Himlad that the grass was starting to get green again and he was able to let his animals out to graze. But this was not the case in Himring. The ground was still rock-hard there, and the kingdom was continually pummeled with dump after dump of snow.
Maitimo and Lómion both sat in the study. Maitimo quietly worked at his desk to draft some important letters, and Lómion sat at the window seat with a law textbook. He had given up on trying to concentrate on the material, and instead he gazed moodily at the increasingly dark sky.
“It’s going to snow soon. I can feel it,” Maitimo said with a sigh, rubbing his shoulder, which always tended to ache worse whenever a storm rolled in.
Lómion was so lost in his thoughts that he did not hear or respond.
Noticing this, Maitimo put his quill pen down and glanced at him. “Lómion?”
Lómion jumped and nearly dropped his book. “Yes, Ada?”
“Are you alright?”
Lómion only shrugged and returned his gaze to the window, which caused Maitimo to frown slightly in concern. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
Maitimo folded his arms and tilted his head, clearly indicating his skepticism. “You know if you want to talk about it, I’m happy to listen. But if not, that’s fine.”
Lómion blurted out, against his better judgment, “My begetting day is in three days.”
Maitimo nodded slowly. He had seen enough loss and suffering in life to understand why this was a thing to be upset about rather than celebrated.
Though Lómion already felt guilty, he couldn’t stop the following words from tumbling out of his mouth as well. “I was keeping it secret from you. Because I know you’re all… nice and caring and all that… and you probably want to throw a ball for me or something similarly fancy. But I… I don’t feel much like celebrating. I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize. I understand completely.” Maitimo left his seat at the desk and came beside Lómion on the window seat, and put his arm around his shoulders. “I remember my first begetting day after I was rescued. I didn’t… exactly want to celebrate that either. My brothers and cousins, bless them, tried to make it nice for me. They decorated my tent with flowers and made me a little tart with rare berries. But I hated all of it. Eating was still difficult and painful, I looked like a nightmare and felt even worse, and I wasn’t sure I’d be anything other than crippled and maimed and bedridden for the rest of my life. So, I wanted to curse the day of my birth, not celebrate it.”
Seeing the horrified and perhaps even ashamed look on Lómion’s face, Maitimo winced, wondering if he had said too much. So, he tried to backtrack. “But even if I hadn’t been to Angband, those celebrations would have still been hard. We had lost our grandfather, our father, and our home itself. Our life was different, and not in a good way. To celebrate without those we had lost would have felt… wrong. Is that how you’re feeling?”
Lómion’s words felt locked up in his throat, but he nodded, buried his face in Maitimo’s shoulder and sobbed.
They shared moments like these often. Though it had been many months since the tragic loss of Aredhel, the pain was not diminished, especially not for her son.
Maitimo didn’t say a word, and only held Lómion tightly and rubbed his back until he sighed, pulled away and wiped his eyes.
“Will you let me do a little something, though?” Maitimo asked with a gentle smile. “There will be no grand celebration, and I won’t go around telling people of the occasion. I promise, you won’t notice my preparations at all. But I’d rather you not spend the day languishing in misery, and… I always love a chance to spoil my family, even if only a little.”
Perhaps Lómion was too worn out from his weeping to argue, but he couldn’t help but smile at the hopeful look on his Ada’s face. “Alright, fine. But promise me you won’t make it too fancy—”
“I promise.”
“—and that you won’t embarrass me.”
Maitimo only gave a thoughtful hum. “That… I’m not so sure I can promise.”
Lómion rolled his eyes and did his very best to look irritated as Maitimo laughed and ruffled his hair. But he couldn’t stop his twitching lips from eventually forming a smile.
“There’s one more thing I need you to promise,” Lómion said, turning his face away before Maitimo could see his smile. “If you’re going to bake something, you can’t put pistachios in it.”
Maitimo only blinked in confusion at the completely random change of subject.
“I, uh…” Lómion ducked his head a little and lowered his gaze, “I’m allergic. Very allergic.”
* * *
Maitimo was not one to break his word, and sure enough, Lómion didn’t notice any of his preparations. In fact, he entirely forgot the conversation about his begetting day, even on the day of. He didn’t remember his own begetting day until he was in the middle of listening to Maitimo explain how Lómion was to accompany him to a meeting with Lord Preston of Doriath.
“Wait a second,” Lómion blurted. “Is this seriously what you had planned for my begetting day celebration?”
Maitimo was clearly trying to keep a straight face, but his lips twitched with a suppressed smirk. “You did say you didn’t want a big fuss about it, and I agreed. We also both agreed you are not to spend the day languishing in misery.”
“So you’re putting me to work? With the snottiest lord in Beleriand?”
“Don’t worry, the meeting shouldn’t take long… depending on how long he talks, anyway.” Maitimo gave Lómion a confident pat on the shoulder before opening the door to the parlor. There, a thin Sinda with limp blond hair, a slightly upturned nose, and pouty lips, sat primly on a sofa with a teacup.
“Lord Maedhros,” he said snidely, “I have been waiting for quite a while. My tea has gotten lukewarm.”
“I am very sorry you had to suffer such a great discomfort,” Maitimo said dryly. Lómion snorted and tried to keep a straight face himself. If there was one thing he appreciated in life, it was Sarcasm.
“And who is this… young chap?” the snotty lord demanded, as though he didn’t hear Maitimo’s remark.
“This is Prince Maeglin, my son.”
Preston’s bored expression grew slightly more intrigued, as though he had added a fine addition to his collection of gossip. “Your son, I see? I can’t help but notice he looks quite different than you. Forgive me, my lord, but according to the public records, I do not recall you ever being—”
“You are forgiven for your prying.” Maitimo cut the lord off and folded his arms, gazing at him unamused. Lómion glanced up at Maitimo before folding his arms as well and offering Preston a salty glare of his own.
And contrary to Maitimo’s implication that the meeting might take a while, he settled the diplomatic business with Preston as swiftly as though he were knocking aside a weak opponent’s sword. An agreement was made and the meeting ended within ten minutes. Maitimo never even sat down or took any tea, and Lómion never had to say a word. So then, what was the point of all this?
After they dismissed Preston, only then did Maitimo sit down and send for some tea. He looked considerably irritated, which only added to Lómion’s confusion.
“I’m sorry. That didn’t go at all how I had planned,” Maitimo explained before Lómion could voice his questions. “I had hoped to give you an opportunity to practice some diplomatic speaking, against an opponent with whom I permit some use of sarcasm. Preston deserves whatever sarcasm you have coming to him, clearly. But given how he couldn’t seem to refrain from expressing his curiosity over our personal business, I thought it better to handle it all myself.”
“Ah, that’s all right.” Lómion shrugged. “But I still think it’s a strange begetting day present.”
“That’s because it wasn’t a present. It was supposed to be a means of keeping you occupied… wait a minute. Lómion, are you saying you do want me to do something special for you after all?”
“I never said I didn’t!”
“Well, then… good thing I already did!” Maitimo smiled as, at that moment, a servant girl arrived, carrying a tray filled with not only tea, but also cookies. These smelled of honey and were filled with sweet berries.
In his life with Aredhel and Eöl, sugar and even honey had been a rare treat for Lómion. But now, living in a house of a former king, Lómion had become quite the cookie afficionado. He could tell right away these hadn’t come from the kitchen chefs. Rather than being perfectly round, they were a little uneven, and they lacked the pristine frosting which normally came from the skilled artisans in the kitchen.
But Lómion liked this about them, because that meant he knew exactly where they came from.
“No pistachios,” Maitimo said with a wink.
“I appreciate you not trying to kill me,” Lómion said with a faint smile as he reached for a cookie. “It sure is an upgrade over my last adar, if I can even call him that.”
Maitimo chuckled. Before his time in Angband, he would have been horrified and concerned by such a joke. But after spending decades in torment, he had learned a thing or two about dark humor, and this was something he and Lómion understood about each other.
Lómion bit into the cookie. With its blend of rich honey and warm spices, he could only describe it as tasting like a hug.
“Thanks, Ada.” Lómion’s smile broadened. “It’s very you. I still don’t know how you manage to bake with one hand. How do you even crack an egg?”
“I can show you sometime. It’s not that hard; it just takes practice.”
Throughout their conversation, Maitimo had noticed something different about Lómion, something he couldn’t quite put a finger on. His stare looked somehow moodier than usual, which was saying something. But at the same time, he seemed cheerful and in a relatively light mood, and his expression did not otherwise betray any dark or despondent feelings.
Finally, Maitimo figured it out.
Eyeliner.
“Lómion! Are you wearing eyeliner?” he exclaimed.
Lómion’s charcoal-lined eyes widened and a flush came to his cheeks. He fidgeted awkwardly in his seat. “It’s, uh, just an experiment, Ada—”
“It’s alright. I don’t have a problem with it,” Maitimo reassured him, more saddened than amused by Lómion’s sudden nervousness. Surely, whenever he dressed or presented himself in a way Eöl didn’t like, he must have paid the consequences. And even though Lómion knew full well that Maitimo wasn’t Eöl—nothing like him, in fact—those instincts of fear remained in his body.
“My brothers Maglor and Curufin like to wear it too,” Maitimo continued, hoping to distract Lómion out of his anxiety. “And they both picked up the habit from our adar. He liked to use bits of charcoal to line his eyes, and our mother seemed to like it a lot when he did that.”
Maitimo smiled wistfully at the memory of when he and Laurë, as small Elflings, had once decided to spy on their parents in the forge. Nerdanel had traced a finger around some of the smoky lining of Fëanáro’s eyes, and then pulled him in for a passionate kiss… Maitimo and Makalaurë had run away screaming. They had learned that day it wasn’t so fun to spy on their parents after all. And the other brothers all had to learn that same lesson in their own timing.
“I did notice that about Uncle Curufin,” Lómion said quietly.
“Is that where you got the idea?”
Lómion only shrugged innocently, and Maitimo smiled and patted his shoulder before standing up. But just then, he got a horrible idea. What if Lómion was wearing the eyeliner because he wanted to impress an elleth? Not that Maitimo knew of any young lady around here who had caught Lómion’s attention, but what if there was one running around unbeknownst to him? Maitimo had only just become an adopted parent to this young ellon! He wasn’t ready for this!
Shaking the thought aside, he said, “Come on. There’s one more thing I have planned for you, and it’s the most important thing of all.”
Hesitant to receive any more attention, yet unable to resist his curiosity, Lómion nodded and followed Maitimo out the door.
They left the castle and trudged through the half-melted sludge on the ground. Without a word, Lómion held Maitimo’s arm as they walked. The terrain was rough and slippery, and Maitimo still walked with a slight limp thanks to Eöl. It had only been a few months since those horrific events, and though Maitimo liked to think he was fully recovered and could do everything he normally could, the idea of him walking through all this snow and mud made Lómion a little nervous.
Maitimo, picking up on this, glanced at Lómion with a sheepish yet grateful smile.
They eventually came to the garden. This was a neatly arranged landscape surrounded by a low brick wall covered with vines, though the vines still looked like drab sticks at this time of year. There were no signs of flowers yet; their reserved plots were still full of nothing but mud and snow. The trees here were not budding yet, so they still looked dull and skeletal, bowed under the weight of melting snow. A cold drop from one of them landed right on the tip of Lómion’s nose, and he yelped. Maitimo chuckled and offered him a clean handkerchief.
“Some begetting day,” Lómion grumbled. “First you make me help you deal with a snotlord, and then you make me snotty myself!”
He blew his nose into the handkerchief. Cold weather always had a way of making his nose run.
“Don’t worry. You could catch a mortal man’s head cold and still be nowhere near as snotty as Lord Preston,” Maitimo said with a solemn nod.
Lómion couldn’t help but crack a smile. And then, for the first time that day—maybe several days—he laughed.
They came to an unassuming corner of the garden, with nothing in it except a decently large plot of dirt. Maitimo reached into a hidden pocket in his cloak and pulled out a tree sapling.
Lómion tried not to look as unamused as he felt. If this was some sort of flowering tree, especially a pink one—
“Don’t worry, I think you’re going to like this one,” Maitimo said, as though he knew Lómion’s thoughts. “I’ve been wanting to fill this space of the garden with something, and I also want you to have more places you can call your own here. This is a weeping willow, and I would like you to have it. It may not look like much now, or even for a few years, but over time, it will grow thick and full. It will have such thick coverage that if you hide under its branches, no one will see you.”
Hiding from people? Lómion was sold!
Maitimo didn’t even have to say another word before Lómion found a small garden shovel sitting nearby and started to dig a little hole for the tree. “I just wish it could grow up now so I can start hiding from people now,” he admitted.
“Well, the best time to plant a tree is twenty-five years ago, as the saying goes. But you still have lots of growing to do, Lómion, and I look forward to watching this tree grow along with you.”
Lómion smirked and paused his digging to glance up at Maitimo. “Ada, you’re such a sap!”
“Ah, your uncle Curufin would love you forever if he heard you make such a pun!” Maitimo grinned and handed Lómion the sapling, and he placed it in the ground and filled the hole with dirt. He then patted the ground with surprising tenderness.
The memory he had been suppressing all week once again rose to the surface of his mind. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it or even think about it because it was too painful. And he still didn’t entirely want to, but planting this sapling made him think of the beautiful tree by which his nana was buried, and… it seemed unfair to leave her out of this celebration when she had worked so hard and risked so much to make his every begetting day special in the past.
Before he could convince himself otherwise, he spoke in a cracked voice.
“Nana used to do a special hunt for me. Every year. There were times when Ad—Eöl, I mean—either was angry at me and wanted to deprive me of a celebration, or on the other extreme, he wanted to be fully in charge of my celebration and leave Nana out of it. So Nana couldn’t often give me a gift or bake me a special treat, but she could always hunt. Eöl couldn’t tell her no, after all. We always needed to eat, and she was a far better hunter than he ever was, and even he had no choice but to realize that. So every year, Nana’s challenge was that she would catch me something bigger than she did last year. So she started off small with squirrels and rabbits when I was an Elfling. Then eventually she started catching big birds like pheasants. And last year, a year ago today, she caught me a huge stag. Bigger than anything I’d ever seen in my life. She hauled it home all by herself, too. I asked her how she would possibly manage to find something bigger next year. She laughed and said she’d find a way, but… she never did…”
Lómion turned his face away from Maitimo and wiped his face again, pretending he was just wiping his nose. But a strong pair of arms closed in around him.
Lómion never could fool Maitimo, even if he attempted to fool himself into thinking he didn’t need any help.
They shared a long moment in silence, with Lómion crying into Maitimo’s shoulder. He hated how often he needed to do this. Well-meaning people often told Lómion time would heal all wounds, but so far at least, he was discovering this to be quite untrue. But the good news—the only good news—was that now Lómion had a father who was always happy to lend a shoulder to cry on, no matter how many times Lómion needed it. Maitimo didn’t seem tired of it yet, and maybe he never would be till the end of time.
Finally pulling away, Lómion wiped his face again and sighed when he saw the smudges of black on the handkerchief. He had cried most of his eyeliner off, apparently.
“You know,” he said quietly to Maitimo, “I don’t actually mind—that much, anyway—when you embarrass me or say cheesy sentimental things.”
“Good,” Maitimo said, smiling and ruffling his hair. “Because I am obligated to do those things once in a while.”
“Once in a while? You do them all the time!”
Maitimo shrugged and nodded, admitting defeat.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m cold,” he said, standing. “And you need to fix your eyeliner.”
Lómion rolled his eyes and stood up as well, taking Maitimo’s arm once again. “Fine.”
But by “fine,” he actually meant: Thanks, Ada. I love you, and I’m proud to be your son.
