Maps by grey_gazania

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Chapter 16: Fingon

“We need to give Maitimo something to do,” Carnistir said to me one morning.

 

“Something to do?”

 

“Something to do,” he repeated. “We’re giving him too much time to think, and he’s getting stuck in his own head. He’s going in circles, and not nice circles, either. I can see it happening. He needs a distraction. We need to give him something else to focus on. Do you think you could find a slate and some chalk? If you can't, I can get them from Makalaurë.” He paused for a moment and then said, “Hell, Makalaurë would probably bring paper and pens if I asked him, but that seems like a waste.”

 

“You want him to practice writing with his left hand,” I said, having caught up with Carnistir’s idea.

 

My cousin nodded. “He’ll need to learn it sooner or later. Might as well start now, don’t you think? And he can ask your father for advice.”

 

My father was left-handed, the only person in our family who was – though I supposed my uncle Fëanáro, who had been ambidextrous, might technically count as well. And I couldn’t deny that Carnistir had a point: Maitimo did need a distraction, and it would be best for him to learn while my father was available to offer tips.

 

“I can get a slate,” I said. “And I’ll talk to my father.”

 

I doubted Atto would say no. He was as worried about Maitimo as any of us.

 

*************

 

“Do you think you could spare some time tomorrow to give Maitimo some advice on writing with his left hand?” I asked my father over dinner. “Not necessarily a full-blown lesson – I know how busy you are, Atto – but just a few tips?”

 

“Is he ready for that, Findekáno?” my father asked.

 

I shrugged. “It was Carnistir’s idea,” I said, “and I think he has a point. Maitimo needs a distraction.”

 

My father pressed his lips together at the mention of my cousin, and he said bitterly, “If it weren't so plain that Maitimo needs him, I would never let Carnistir stay without wringing an apology out of the wretch.”

 

A reasonable point of anger, I thought. My cousin had a lot to apologize for, both to us and to Maitimo. I knew Maitimo didn’t fault his brothers for leaving him to Morgoth, but I certainly did, and I faulted him even more for the burning of the ships, for condemning my family and our people to cross the Helcaraxë, where so many of us had died.

 

“I’d just as soon toss him in the lake in a sack,” Turukáno said, provoking a dark laugh from Irissë.

 

My father, however, did not join in. “We’ll have no kinslaying on these shores,” he said gravely.

 

Turukáno fell silent, but he shot me a look that made my insides squirm with guilt.

 

I hadn’t known. That was the thought that had sustained me across the Helcaraxë. I hadn’t known what was happening. I’d seen my cousin, my beloved, in danger and jumped in to defend him. I hadn’t meant to murder the Teleri. I’d simply been led astray by Fëanáro’s sons.

 

Including Maitimo, but I didn’t like to think about that too deeply.

 

“I’d be glad to give Maitimo some advice,” my father said. “When do you plan to start?”

 

“Tomorrow morning.”

 

He nodded, and then turned the conversation to other things.

 

**************

 

“What is this?” Maitimo asked, when Carnistir, my father, and I presented him with the slate and chalk I had procured.

 

“Something for you to do,” Carnistir said, perching on the end of Maitimo’s bed. “You have to relearn how to write eventually. And it’ll give you something to focus on.”

 

Besides what happened to you, he didn’t say, but the look that passed between him and his brother made me suspect that Maitimo had heard the unspoken words loud and clear. Still, Maitimo gamely maneuvered the slate to rest against the stump of his right arm and took the chalk in his left hand. Then he attempted the alphabet.

 

For a first try, it was better than I’d expected – the tengwar were rather shaky, rather wobbly, but still legible. But he’d only reached up to ando before he noticed that his hand had begun to smear the earlier letters as it passed over them.

 

“Well, that’s not working,” he said matter-of-factly. He looked straight at my father and asked, “Uncle, have you any advice? I supposed you must have run into the same problem when you were first learning.”

 

My father nodded, took the slate and chalk from Maitimo, and demonstrated how he held his hand when he wrote. Then he gave them back, wrapped his hand around Maitimo’s – a hand that was still uncomfortably skeletal, for all that my beloved had slowly begun to regain some of the weight he’d lost during his captivity – and manipulated Maitimo’s fingers into the correct position.

 

Carnistir flashed me a slightly smug smile, and then he withdrew to the corner of the room, leaving Maitimo and my father uninterrupted. Normally such a smile from him would have made me fantasize about hitting him, but in this case he was perhaps justified. I hadn’t seen Maitimo’s eyes so unclouded or his expression so bright since Aman, and I could tell already that Carnistir’s idea had been a good one.

Chapter End Notes

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