Short Tales of Arda by grey_gazania

Practice

Fingon helps Maedhros re-learn a necessary skill. From a prompt on Tumblr: "Would you try for me?"

"I will never be able to do this."

Fingon looked up to see that Maedhros had dropped the pen from his left hand and turned away from the scrap of parchment in front of him, looking utterly defeated. "Don't give up yet," he said to his cousin, frowning. "It's only been a few months; you'll manage it."

"It isn't even legible, Káno." It might have been a snap, had Maedhros been less tired; as it was, he just sounded dully resigned. "It didn't take three months to achieve readability the first time I learned this. I'm useless." He closed his eyes and continued, softly, "You should have killed me."

"We've been over this before. I absolutely should not have killed you," Fingon said firmly. Maedhros didn't often indulge in self-pity, but on the rare occasions when he did, Fingon had found that imitating Aunt Nerdanel's no-nonsense attitude was the best way to snap him out of it. "You are not 'useless'. You simply need more practice." He strode over to the desk and picked up the pen, pressing it back into Maedhros' hand. "Try again," he instructed, "for me if not for yourself."

The look Maedhros shot him was a mix of overt irritation and subtle gratitude, but he put pen to paper once more, carefully tracing out the first few letters in a wobbly hand. For Fingon, that was reward enough.