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Upon reading this ficlet, I am fervently hoping you'll expand on Maitimo and Macalaurë's relationship with your trademark gifts for writing great dialogue and finely wrought emotion.  You've drawn the affection between these two so well here.

I hope you can forgive some comment-recyling from your LJ, but I think this bears repeating.  Just look at it as "pimpage" of the story. ;^)

The following is a fabulous example of the "show, don't tell"  approach with a keen eye to detail:

Idly scratching at a dried spot of egg yolk that had dribbled onto the front of his threadbare tunic at breakfast the day before...

Then you paint the next layer - Nelyafinwë's studied aesthetic,:

Nelyafinwë’s bright copper-hued hair cascaded past his shoulders in an apparent state of attractive disarray, which Macalaurë knew with certainty had required considerable effort to achieve.

Now that is beautiful writing!  It's a vivid scene and throws the contrast of the two men into high relief.

Nelyafinwë’s cheeks instantly reddened. Macalaurë mentally thanked Ilúvatar that he had inherited his father’s coloring and not that of his mother. Redheads had such difficulty in hiding their emotions, even those who, like his brother, had attained far greater self-mastery than he had.

I love this observation on multiple levels. For one, the biological realities of human emotion and response which will be just as true for H. sapiens eldarensis as they are for H. sapiens sapiens and for another, that Macalaurë hit the mark and Nelyo can't hide it! Heh!

Macalaurë cackled uncontrollably

*Snort* I can hear this.  This, taken together with scraping that egg yolk off his shirt (I've done the same with my bathrobe so maybe I can identify with this), creates a character who is distinctive in his personality and habits, not just another epic Elf, and you do this in a ficlet. 

Suddenly slamming his chair to floor, he grabbed a small harp from the foot of his bed. He had the main part of the piece in his head now. It would be a wistful song about a clandestine love.

And we come full circle as the elusive composition crystallizes into a wistful song. Very satisfying conclusion for both the character and the reader. Although this is humorous and light, there is an undercurrent of the somber, too.

Very well done!

Thank you for the comments. I never complain about re-cycled comments, especially when they are good! (Sometimes I wish I could collect them all in one place, since you are one of the few overlapping commenters that I have and I get interesting remarks from completely different sets of readers--in fact, I am terribly excited that I got a nice comment from a published mystery writer on a recent bit I did on the Mary Renault story site--looking at something from a totally different angle than the typical fanfic reviewer who so often are caught up in interpretation of their own favorite characters). It is fascinating to me at what different people look for and get out of one's stories.

Got a comment somewhere else that Macalaure here appears a lot like Dawn's Macaluare from Another Man's Cage. (Of course, the closer they are chronologically to her story, the more like her characters they do appear, since I took off from her and only later does the character development begin to split. I actually thought that Nelyo was more like hers even than Macalaure here.) I've often joked that I certainly started this story cycle as fanfic more of Another Man's Cage than of the Silmarillion per se, but the farther down the road I get the more they diverge.

One other funny thing about writing this is that Kenaz challenged me and she doesn't really do humor, whereas I don't write even tragedy without it. So I am very glad the somber came through.

On the blushing redhead: my kids are not fair, but they are both terrible liars. (They are also good actors. I guess they didn't bother to use their craft with me.) I always knew when they were pretending not to understand me or not telling the truth.

I really like the portrayals of Maedhros and Maglor here and how you differentiated them :) Maglor's an artist and doesn't seem to care for ordinary, everyday things much. And Maedhros' elegant style nicely contrasted with Maglor's attitude.

Then, some things are obvious to Maglor, and you did a great job capturing the moment.

Very well done and very enjoyable :) Thanks for sharing.

Thank you so much, Robinka. I am really glad that it worked for you. I look forward to writing more about their relationship with one another within my own universe. I've thought about it a lot more than I have communicated it to date. I was pushed to write this story by a request, which was a wonderful opportunity to begin. Thank you for reading and commenting.

Love the differences between Makalaurë and Maitimo you show here, and taking off from Dawn's 'verse.

Suddenly slamming his chair to floor, he grabbed a small harp from the foot of his bed. He had the main part of the piece in his head now. It would be a wistful song about a clandestine love. And, after he got the basics written, he would take a bath.

I think any artist-- painter, singer, writer-- can identify with this. I know I've done it!

Thank you again! You caught me out once more showing my Maglor-crushing. I love to think of him as the artist, who was forced by fate to be so much more. And Maedhros trying to be the best he can be under circumstances that sometimes involve giving up some of himself. So glad you liked this one.