Maglor in the 1848 French Revolution by Aprilertuile

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April 1847

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Maglor kept an ear out every day he worked among the patrons of the tavern, but there was no talk of a tuberculosis cluster. Most probably, Maglor had managed to boost people’s immune system enough to avoid most of the damage. Good.

There was fear of cholera and warnings that in this or that street there were ill people and one never knew what they had and…

But overall nothing too close to the tavern.

Maglor kept an ear out for anything that was related to epidemics, soldier movements, guard movements, and the current famine. He tended to tune out everything that had to do with social unrest.

There was always social unrest in this country, and quite frankly, everywhere there was a royal family in power or even an imperial one, there were people suffering, unhappy people, full of feelings of spite and bitterness.

Most of the time it didn’t mean a thing.

Granted, the French people seemed more than most ready and willing to push their own royal family out of power forcefully if necessary, but their last active rebellion had been rather recent, so Maglor doubted it’d come to anything big this time around.

Maglor also kept an eye on the press, newspapers came every other day to the tavern, and Maglor always managed to borrow it for a bit.

And oh, Maglor appreciated the invention of newspapers. It made it far easier to keep updated on current events. Or on official stories of current events at least.

News was always grim. Wars news everywhere, protests, lawsuits… one in particular seemed to have stirred quite a bit of talk: a priest was accused and condemned for the rape and murder of 14 year old girl.

Even the people who couldn’t actually read, heard about the case. One more brick in the wave of people’s displeasure with religion.

If Maglor had known the mess the country was in currently, he’d have turned toward another country, possibly Italy. Surely Vesuvius wasn’t going to erupt every time he went near it, and besides the country was large enough…

Though, if he had done that, he would not have met Louis and the poor kid would probably have died of Tuberculosis… That would have been a loss.

One he’d never have known about.

It was Tuesday before Louis insisted on going back to his place to check if anyone from his school had left lessons or things to do on his desk. And to get clean clothing that fit him, instead of counting on Maglor’s own.

Maglor didn’t seem to have a lot of clothing to spare to start with, so Louis felt bad to keep stealing it.

Maglor didn’t trust him to be recovered enough to go alone, so agreed on the condition that Maglor went with him.

Louis accepted, and walked with Maglor at a slower than usual pace to a house about 20 minutes away from the tavern. Louis had a key for the servant’s entrance, which made Maglor tut.

“You ever get to come in by the main door?”

“No. François, my room-mate, you know the rich guy I told you about? He’s rather… Well, he prefers it if I stay discreet.”

“And it’s discreet to use the servant’s entrance?”

“A reminder of my station I suppose. I don’t care much.”

Maglor frowned but let it go. Rich assholes would always be rich assholes.

Maglor ignored the little voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Maedhros and reminded him that once upon a time he had been a “rich asshole”, and only changed himself when their father lost his mind.

Some ghosts were hard to shake off at times.

“So here it is, my room… And… Days worth of work. Well at least I have my missing classes right there, I guess, no need to bother the teachers.”

Maglor took a look at the work abandoned on Louis’ desk and shook his head.

“I wish him luck to learn all that at the last moment.”

Louis shrugged:

“His assholery allows me to study without having to pay rent on top of everything else, so I won’t complain really. It’s just… Tiring.”

Maglor looked at Louis, who kept throwing him looks like he wasn’t sure about where he stood with him, and he took a decision there and then.

“If you want some help with that, I can probably give you a hand. I can’t learn anything for him or for you, but I can at least help you a bit. That would at least allow you to catch up on your own work.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why help me? You’ve done a lot already. A lot more than many people would have done. I’m pretty sure that Ismérie would not have called a doctor for me without you, and neither would she have taken care of me enough for me to recover even if she had stashed me into a room of her tavern. She’s more afraid than most of catching something deadly since her husband died of Cholera in jail last winter. She wouldn’t have gotten close enough to me to help me. I’m aware enough to be able to say I was not going to survive that illness without a lot of help.”

Or not at all, no matter the help, if it hadn’t come from an elf, Maglor corrected in his head.

And even with the help of an elf, Louis was still afflicted with a persistent cough and shortness of breath that Maglor found particularly frustrating and concerning.

His ability to heal always had limits…

“The first time we met, even, you gave me your food. Why?”

“You seemed to need it more than I did. I know what it is to fall on hard times. When I needed help, more often than not, someone gave me a hand. I’m just… Passing along the favour. Why be selfish when it doesn’t cost much at all to be selfless. And since then I’ve discovered I like our talks. I like meeting with you, and I, contrary to Ismérie, don’t fear illnesses. Whatever happens will happen whether or not I do all I can to avoid it.”

And Maglor could hardly tell him that he was so isolated from years living alone in the middle of nowhere that he latched onto the first remotely willing and interesting person in sight. For one he didn’t look old enough for that to be believable on top of everything else.

“I appreciate the help, don’t mistake me, but that sounds like you believe in fate, and fate doesn’t decide if someone dies there or then. Human stupidity and cruelty has far more to do with it.”

“And yet I’m here, I took care of you when you were ill, and I got away with it without falling sick. If I was supposed to fall sick, I would have.”

Or more to the point Maglor knew very well indeed that he wouldn’t fall sick. At the time the plague became a nuisance in Europe, Maglor had been entirely unbothered, but it was a nice way to explain why he wasn’t bothered by the risk of catching something deadly.

“I’d call that luck, not fate.”

“Whatever it is, I’m not sick, and I’m not afraid of falling sick. Or of dying of something. If it happens, it happens, and that’ll be all.”

It was a bit more complicated than that, admittedly, but if he was afraid to die, he’d live as a recluse in a forest, not among quarrelsome, troublesome men.

“Is that why I never heard you rage against your social situation? Something happened, you consider it fate or well deserved and that’s all? Kings are right or they wouldn’t be kings, and poor people deserve to be poor?”

“You know me better than that, Louis. You don’t hear me rage against my social situation because I have no reason to rage against it. I’m alive, I have a job, a roof and somewhat regular food. It’s more than many people can claim, and you know it, you know it because half the time you are in a worse situation than I am yourself. Shall I cry about how unlucky I am to someone even less fortunate than I? Why? And what would be the point?”

“I see.”

“As for kings; they’re not kings by divine right, Louis. They’re just men and as fallible and greedy as any other. I’m afraid you don’t hear me rage against kings because it won’t change a thing. Have a lineage of leaders and down the lines you’ll see someone will have ground for complaints until someone does something for the leadership to jump to another line, and you’ll start again with a perhaps competent leader but that’ll worsen with his descendant until the leadership has to jump again, rinse and repeat. History proved this better than I can explain it, sadly.”

“Oh come on, Max, you’re too young to be that resigned to fate! Everything can change if we work for it!”

Maglor smiled despite himself. Too young indeed.

“So, Louis, will you allow a friend to help you?”

“Does that friend realise I can never repay his kindness?”

“Kindness is never a thing to be repaid or it becomes a banal service my dear.”

“Alright then. If you’re sure… If you want to… And if you can.”

Maglor smiled at him then and nodded. Of course, he’d only help where he could help, that was never in question. He wouldn’t jeopardise his young friend’s studies.

Maglor read through a few assignments to do while Louis got changed into his own clothing. That fit far better, and smelt less like alcohol and food.  One downside of working in a tavern was the endless smell of it.

“I didn’t realise before how tall you are, Max.”

“I learnt early on not to loom over people. It’s never a nice thing to do, and it causes problems.”

Particularly with men who seem to take everything as a challenge, Eru knows why. It was not as if a few centimetres of height more or less made a man more or less worthy, good or strong.

Men…