A Brother's Gift by Elisif

Chapter 1

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“Aren’t you going to try it on?”

The hand, crafted of polished bronze, the mottled-copper colour of old coins, is cold beneath my hand, the heavy fingers alien and waxy to the touch. I rotate the hand slightly in my palm, knuckles resting on the green and splintering wood of the breakfast table; the digits of the hand click in and out of position, move stiffly up and downwards until the crafted hand slumps flat beneath my palm.

I glance about the breakfast chamber at my brothers, assess their reactions. Makalaurë, as always at my right, is largely ignoring the hand, remaining instead focussed on nudging my side and urging me to eat more of the angelica-topped crispbread and boar stew set before us, to Curufin’s clear distaste; Carnistir is eyeing his creation with the wide-eyed fascination of a fellow smith, eyes working to discern the function of the gears and rivulets; Tyelko is attempting to appear interested in the same, but I know his eyes are fixed on the ringed, almost bone-deep scar that circles my wrist; Amrod, is ignoring me completely, aggressively restringing a bow at the table and muttering something about hunting. Only Curufin is smiling.

For all the reasons I have to expect an ulterior motive from my brother, it seems genuine; I suppose that by Curufin’s understanding of the term,  seizing upon my maiming as an opportunity for creation and craftsmanship is great kindness. My Father’s affection for Arda Marred was built on much the same principle of foreseen and imagined artistry, but I am not Arda, that which yearly brings forth unanticipated beauty in spite of unhealed scars. I merely endure, or at least I have done to this point. My fingers tremble against the polished metal, now glinting gold in the shifting light.

I open my mouth to speak, but Curufin rises, forces himself upwards with palms laid flat on the table, strides around the table towards me, lays a broad palm on my shoulder; he reaches down and takes the mechanical hand and wrist-band, pauses with them held above my right arm.

“Surely you by now possess the strength-“

I sigh, lower my head; of course guilt must come in to this discussion. It was not my fault that I could not make use of the last gift he crafted for me, an engraved bronze cap for my right arm, intended hide the hideous stump and to shield it from blows when sustained when I tirelessly and clumsily reached out with a hand no longer there; he brought the gift while my healers were asleep, bade me to hold out my arm and tightened it, not anticipating the immense weight of the bronze against my atrophied arm and the near-dislocation of my mangled shoulder which resulted. He subsequently banished himself from my presence, though I assumed it was in frustration or at Makalaurë’s orders, not for the crafting of a second gift; responding to an unaccepted gesture of friendship with a second was not something I believed in his nature.

Until now.

Wordlessly, Curufin reaches down, lifts my arm and begins securing the bronze wristband, not altogether gently (my wrist has endured other pain too great for me make a fuss), finger prodding the raw scars as he twists the gilded band until it clicks into place and the pressure tightens, then begins the task of screwing on the mechanical hand itself. That too clicks neatly into place; he steps back, arms folded, and I am aware of the eyes of my brothers now fixated on my heavy and now-smarting wrist.

A collective gasp echoes across the chamber as I lift my arm (with some difficulty) and allow the hand to gleam in the light. A here a few muttered words of praise from Carnistir regarding the artistry; I do not need to draw my eyes from the polished metal to know that my next-to-youngest brother must be beaming.

“Fortunate for you to come from a family of smiths, brother!” he says slapping my shoulder- the left, by some unnamed deity’s grace- no doubt smiling still , and I see Tyelko and Carnistir nodding in agreement. Amrod, of course ignores everyone, swearing as he adjusts the draw of his bow.

The band is now growing painful; as I set my arm down, I sigh- too loudly- and unfortunately, my brother notices.

“Well, don’t you like it?” he says.

I bite down on my lip. I don’t know what he anticipated; for all the effort he put into the mechanics and movable digits, I merely feel a heavy weight bearing off of my wrist, the mechanical hand awkward and utterly alien to me, a portion of myself feigned in denial of a wound that will never heal. I flatten the hand against the tabletop and watch as the digits constrict and flatten, though I of course feel nothing; I glance at Makalaurë, who looks as confused as I am, swallow hard and try to think of a response.

“It is- a fine piece of work Curvo.”

“No it isn’t,” he says seizing hold of my arm and lifting it to his eyes, painfully, “That gear is cracked right in half, why didn’t you say something? Carnistir, Tyelko, go ready the forge so I can fix this, it’s shameful.”

To my quiet relief, he unscrews the hand and the wristband, lays them aside as he ushers Carnistir and Tyelko from the room, but again reaches out and squeezes my shoulder- he has not been around me enough to know how much I hate being unexpectedly touch, I suppose. I take hold of my stump, now tender and throbbing more than usual, marked red where the band was fastened. Curufin continues.

 “Once I have it fixed you’ll be able to use the craft of your family to finally hide that hideous stump from view.”

I let go of the stump, let it rest in full view upon the table and look upwards.

“Why is it necessary that I hide it?”

He looks utterly dumbfounded, glances downwards.

“It’s ugly,” he says, exasperated. “Why in Arda wouldn’t you want to?”

I stiffen, meet his eyes.

“Hiding it will not change that it is there. This isn’t Tirion,” I tell him, drawing back my wrist and cradling it in the crook of my left arm, gently toying with the pointed nub of flesh where the bones end. “Do you truly still believe that we can judge the world in terms of fair is good and marred is evil?”

If unintentionally, I have unearthed my skills in debate and persuasion and laid those cards against him; he can hardly argue with that point with me standing in front of him, scarred and maimed and broken however much they all attempt to deny it.

“Maitimo,” he says, stiffly and deliberately emphasising my now forbidden name. “Even if fair is no longer a guarantee of goodness, surely it is still our job to make fair what has been marred?”

There are more important things than making beautiful ones, I think to myself, though I will not say it out loud. I may be a former and soldier and lapsed statesman, but I am a former soldier and a lapsed statesman in a family of artists, and I will not slate artistry in front of them, nor lessen its value. They are blessed to have not seen life reduced to pain and momentarily lesser pain, and I envy them, wish I could yet see the world as they do.

Our confrontation is interrupted by a raw scraping sound of metal against wood; Makalaurë, Curufin, and I look across the chamber in unison to see that Amrod has flung aside the bow and is now roughly carving the something into the table with a dagger clutched in his white-knuckled fist. I shift to rise, open my mouth to chastise him, but I feel Makalaurë’s arm reaching around my waist before he leans into my ear and rapidly whispers:

“Leave him be. We have other tables.”

I grapple for a response, but before I can, Curufin resumes our argument.

“You hate it, don’t you?”

I reach up, brush aside an undone braid from my face and Makalaurë’s hand when he reaches over to tie it, rest my face in my hand.

“No, Curvo, I do not hate it.”

“Then why are you ungrateful for my hard work done for your sake?”

I sigh.

“It’s just- how am I ever to accept what I am-“

I see the word “cripple” form silently on his lips.

“If I hide from it? Furthermore-“ I draw back my sleeve, deliberately lay my arm across the table. “Isn’t it now my burdensome duty to remind our people of the capabilities of our enemy?”

Curufin grimaces, his composure gone.

“If you want to frighten people, surely you should be doing it with your face, not your arm, seeing as that particular maiming was the work of those who, thanks to you are now our overlords.”

I feel Makalaurë tensing next to me and slam my hand down hard on his leg before he can leap upwards and start a fight in my defence. I rise to me feet, fast enough that my leg resumes throbbing, pain shooting from the join where it was rebroken but I remain standing, look down at my brother. Unfortunately, my stance now fails to threaten him- another day, another loss I hadn’t yet noticed- and it is he who resumes the fight.

“You sicken me,” he says, snatching the hand from the table, clutching it to his chest like a baby. “How can you be content with simply existing like this? Are you honestly content with being nothing but a sack full of scars all eternity? If you’re so fond of the idea, should we just sling you over a pole and use you as a banner to warn others of the existence of Moringotto?”

“I need time to heal-“

“What is the point of healing if you don’t intend to live?”

My own composure is now crumpling. I forcefully lift my right arm to his face, hold out the stump in front of his hardened eyes, ignore Makalaurë’s grip on my leg and quiet pleas for peace.

“How exactly do you expect me to live with this?”

Slam. We hear the sharp forcing of raw steel into damp plaster and turn to see the bone handle of Amrod’s dagger protruding from the wall to our left. Before we break our shocked silence, he seizes his bow, storms out of the chamber, leaves the rest of us in pained silence.

Curufin seizes the mechanical hand, leaves by the other door and does not look back. I remain, shaking slightly.

Silence.

“Nelyo, sit down, you shouldn’t be putting unnecessary pressure on your leg-“

Makalaurë tugs at my sleeve, pulls me back to my seat, tries to convince me of the merits of another plate of stew.

 “Do not mind Curvo,” Makalaurë says as he proceeds to cut the leg of boar from the plate I refused into bite-sized chunks.  “It is not only in his anger that he takes after Father-“

“I know that-“ I say, brushing aside the spoon that he waves at me.

Makalaurë sighs.

“He cannot take slight of his creations-“

“In that he is not alone in taking after Father, Laurë!”

He blushes slightly, reaches for another piece of bread.

“Am I that bad?”

“Usually you’re worse,” I say and I am glad to see his cracked smile at my attempted joke, but he is clearly embarrassed and keen to change the subject.

“Nelyo, will you fetch some more bread from the sideboard?” he says. He has of late been responding to my request that he treat me normally and cease to baby me for healing’s sake, though I can see does no nervously and is still convinced that he ought to be following me about with a feather-bed and a large net.

I rise to my feet, cautious with my throbbing leg this time, pace around the chamber dragging my hand across the table until my finger tips come to rest on Amrod’s carving.  Two familiar sigils of our family, for all the anger with which he wielded the dagger, lovingly entwined.

I sigh. It is true what they say: that Amrod has, in the years of my absence, aged backwards in all save his propensity for killing things and turned with the blessing of my brothers’ guilt-ridden apathy from a mature and powerful man to a frightened, impetuous boy who vanishes for weeks at a time, and when at home screams and cries out in his sleep. I would have spoken to him of the latter, perhaps found comfort for both of us in shared suffering, but he does not appear to have recovered from the incident where in pain and awaking from feverish sleep I made the mistake of calling him Pitya.

“Is he alright?” I remember asking Makalaurë, once he was done clutching his face in his hands and muttering the phrase “Maitimo, you bloody idiot” at me.

“Of course not,” he told me. “But he is still with us, and we cannot ask for more than that, can we?”

“Maybe we can,” I told him. And in that moment, I think I truly believed it. And perhaps, somewhere within, I still do.