The Pity of Living Things by Himring

Chapter 1

Elros:

When I was not so very much older than you, I lived in the woods with Maglor and Maedhros and the rest of them. One day, I saw Maedhros crouching at the foot of a tree, looking hard at something between its roots. I was curious, so I risked coming closer, although, with Maedhros, there was always the chance that, when I approached him too directly, he would give me one of those sidelong glances of his and move away—not ostentatiously, but decisively. This time, he did not. He went on gazing down at whatever it was he was looking at.

I crouched down and saw that it was a stag beetle. I had reached the age when I thought I was too old and wise to be interested in beetles any more, but because Maedhros was fascinated by this one, I thought there must be something special about it, so I started studying it. It looked like an ordinary stag beetle. The longer I looked, though, the more I noticed that it was a perfectly wonderful specimen of an ordinary beetle. The delicate curve of those strong mandibles! The matte gleam of its wing cases! The neat symmetrical arrangement of its legs! And the way it was positioned on the ground among bits of leaf mould as if that was exactly where it belonged...

When I looked up and across at Maedhros, delighted and grateful that he had permitted me to share this beautiful thing with him, I was struck by the expression on his face, for he did not appear to be pleased at the sight of the insect at all. He was frowning as if in pain and his mouth twisted with a bitter and violent emotion that alarmed me. I guessed what he was about to do a moment before he did it and, as he stretched out his hand to crush the beetle beneath his palm, I quickly cupped both my hands over it to protect it and said loudly:  ‘No!’

I felt quite terrified, at this point, because I had not dared to contradict him openly before—or at any rate, not for a long time, not since we had first come to live with Maglor, when I had been so scared and unhappy that I had not cared who it was whom I was defying. But when he lifted his head and our eyes met, the unaccustomed harshness went out of his face and he was calm again.

‘Thank you, Elros’, he said, in the tone of voice he always used with me, polite and a little remote.

I stared at him, mouth agape.  For a moment his fingers hovered over my hands, not quite touching them, and then withdrew. He was still looking at me, and I thought that perhaps he had known exactly who I was all along, I myself, Elros, where I had imagined that he saw only the son of Elwing or a distantly connected cousin or a half-elven mongrel of rather dubious parentage.

He said to me: ‘Beware of pity, Elros. It is not, in itself, kind. When unleavened with other emotions, it is too much like contempt.’

I had wanted his full attention so badly, but now I had it, I found it hard to bear. He sensed that, I guess, for he got up and left me crouching by the tree, my fingers still cupped around the beetle, which grew impatient in its confinement, for I felt it prodding my skin, trying to get out.

***

Amandil:

 I’m not sure I understand this story, grandfather. What does unleavened mean?

Elros:

It means not mixed.  As when your mother mixes dough for bread—if she leaves something important out that should go in, the bread will not come out right.

Amandil:

Maedhros was mad. That’s what they say. Or wasn’t he?

Elros:

Oh, yes, he was. Most other people would have either killed the beetle right away or not tried to kill it at all, don’t you think? And would anyone else have felt so intensely sorry for the beetle that they wanted to end its life? It was just a beetle, short-lived and a little clumsy, perhaps, but not crippled or hurt in any way.

Amandil:

But you don’t want me to step on beetles again. That is what this is about, isn’t it?

Elros:

You stepped on that beetle just now, because you wanted to know what would happen, didn’t you? Well, you saw what happened. Now you know.

Amandil:

I won’t do it again. Not on purpose.

Elros:

Good enough for now. The rest of this story...you can think about later.

Chapter End Notes

This 'Amandil' is intended to be the later King Tar-Amandil, Elros's eldest grandson, not Elendil's father.

As for the entomological side of things, Hudson's rather colourful account of stag beetles in Hampshire in the early 1920s might be of interest (but it isn't altogether idyllic either).