Gold Thread by Himring

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Chapter 1

Pairing: Fingon/Maedhros

Setting: In Valinor, just after Feanor asked Galadriel for a strand of her hair and was refused

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‘Your father isn’t always very consistent, is he?’ Findekano remarked.

Maitimo, who had been about to start chewing absent-mindedly on his pen, looked up and frowned inquiringly.

‘I mean’, explained Findekano, ‘everything Vanyarin is bad, right?  Vanyarin wives and mothers and grandmothers are bad. So are Vanyarin accents, Vanyarin fashions, Vanyarin customs—you name it! Now what puzzles me is—if there is anything in Tirion that is extra Vanyarin, so to speak—in fact more Vanyarin than High King Ingwe on Taniquetil himself, if possible—surely, it’s Artanis’s hair. Why ever would your father want a strand of it?’

He was speaking with a lightness he did not feel. He could not quite understand why this particular incident made him so uneasy. Quarrelling relatives were pretty much standard, in his experience, and the latest disagreement between Carnistir and Angarato had been a lot noisier than this, after all.

Now if only Maitimo would give him a wry smile and quote something obscure and sophisticated about the consistent being at the heart of inconsistency! Then he would know he was seeing ghosts. Instead, Maitimo looked distinctly uncomfortable just for a moment and then completely blank.

Findekano’s heart sank. So the Artanis incident worried Maitimo, too. Not that there was a chance that they were actually about to discuss it. He might still be almost a head shorter than Maitimo, but he was fully grown. Maitimo, however, did not seem to have noticed. You could almost hear him thinking: Don’t worry the kid.

Findekano sighed. ‘You know, it all makes me feel very inadequate’, he said plaintively. ‘How can I be a proper Vanyarin mongrel without golden hair?’

‘Ingrate’, said Maitimo, rallying. ‘That’s authentic Noldorin hair you’ve got, Findekano, the genuine article.  Once again you show a lamentable lack of patriotism, my dear cousin!’

‘What else can be expected of someone of my dubious ancestry?’ asked Findekano in an exaggerated Vanyarin accent.

Maitimo laughed.

‘I should write a treatise in praise of the authentic Noldorin hair colour,’ he suggested, still trying to get into the spirit of things. ‘Black as smoke or as jet or as sable, black as choicest ebony or a raven’s wing…’

‘Come off it’, said Findekano, suddenly nettled. ‘We can’t all be red-heads like you.’

Privately, he considered Artanis’s hair a bit too much of a good thing—almost like walking around with Laurelin herself on one’s head: spectacular, to be sure, but not exactly casual day wear. Red hair, on the other hand… There was something about red hair.

‘But I like black’, protested Maitimo, startled into sincerity.

They were both silent for a moment. Both had discovered that, while trying to avoid the subject of Feanaro and Artanis, they seemed to have strayed into quite a different conversation; neither of them was exactly sure what it was about.

Finally, Maitimo said: ‘You know what the advantage of the authentic Noldorin hair colour is?’

‘What?’ asked Findekano.

‘Let me show you.’

He got up, crossed the room and, from behind the couch, pulled out the family’s mending basket. He took out a tattered scarf that Pityo had ripped beyond mending, plucked out a few gold threads and twined them together. Then he returned to Findekano, who had been watching him from where he remained sitting at the table. He stooped over Findekano, undid one of his braids and re-braided it, gently and deftly, weaving the gold threads into the braid as he did so.

‘Look’, he said, leading Findekano to a mirror on the far wall. ‘Authentic Noldorin hair for optimum contrast! If I had done that with Artanis’s hair—or even with Findarato’s hair—the threads would have been practically invisible.’

Findekano looked at himself in the mirror. Gold gleamed from between the dark strands of the braid. Beside him, Maitimo was waiting for his verdict.

‘Not bad’, Findekano said, judiciously. ‘Could be improved upon, though.’

And from that day onwards, on every formal occasion—and some not so formal ones—he wore gold braided into his hair.

***

‘Authentic Noldorin hair’, said Maedhros softly, almost dreamily, ‘black as choicest ebony or a raven’s wing…’

So much had happened in the meantime. Feanor was dead. So was Finrod. Neither of them had seen Galadriel for quite a while.

Fingon, High King of the Noldor in Middle-earth, finished un-braiding his hair, wound the gold threads he had removed around the fingers of his left hand and put the coil down on the dressing-table.

He smiled a little and said: ‘I’m still waiting for you to write that treatise.’

‘What treatise?’ asked Maedhros artlessly. ‘I just happen to like black.’

‘Well, I like red’, said Fingon firmly and, as he took Maedhros in his arms, he couldn't help marvelling, as he sometimes did, at how easy this had become, when little else was so, now.

He felt Maedhros settle into the familiar embrace, adjusting himself smoothly to compensate for the difference in height. He would not have to look for Maitimo in the red of the sunset or the hearth fire tonight...

‘At least, we did learn to recognize love’, thought Fingon, buried his face against Maedhros's neck and took a long, deep breath.

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Chapter End Notes

With thanks to Agelast (Zeen) for the original inspiration.