Chapter 2: Mother
Is there anything dumber than hunting?
No, there is not. Thank you.
Don't tell that to Celegorm and Caranthir, though. They'd disembowel you. For some reason which does not make any sense to me, most of my brothers absolutely love killing poor dumb animals which never did anything to them and don't taste very good, either. Personally, I gave up meat when I was nine and thought—still think—that hunting was lame. Almost as lame as forging stuff.
And both Celegorm and Caranthir knew this. So why on earth did they invite me to go hunting with them the day before I left for Aule's?
"Um, okay, first of all, I don't hunt. Ever," I said. "Second of all, if you'd been paying attention, you'd know that I have to leave to go to The Most Boring Place in the World tomorrow. So no, I'm not going to be able to come on a week-long hunting trip with you guys, much as I'd love to."
"Yeah, we heard about that," said Celegorm, smirking. "Hope you have fun."
Ah, so that's why they'd asked. It was to taunt me. Well, I couldn't let them down by not reacting.
"You guys are idiots, you know that?" I said.
"Not as much as you," said Caranthir. "At least I know how to do long division."
"Oh, yes, that's really going to help you in later life."
"Hey, when I'm a millionaire, I'm gonna have to know math so I can deal with my money."
"When I'm a millionaire, I'll have people to deal with my money for me."
"Like you'll ever be rich," said Celegorm. "You'll be living on Dad's money forever, since you're too dumb to get a job."
At that point, I did what any self-respecting teenage boy would do. I flipped him off and left the room.
Having nothing better to do after that, I went into my bedroom and played my lute really, really loud (a good method for releasing frustration, by the way. I recommend it, even though my brothers claim that their hearing is now permanently damaged because of it). Unfortunately, I couldn't even do that for very long, since Dad banged on the door and told me to "quit making that confounded racket."
"Dad, most of the other boys make twice this much noise and you don't yell at them nearly this much," I replied.
"Don't get smart with me, young man."
"You say that a lot, and it doesn't appear to be working. Find something else to order me to do."
He didn't reply, but thanks to my wicked awesome ears I could hear him muttering to himself as he walked down the hallway. It sounded like he was saying "Maedhros was never this difficult."
Just to piss him off, I went back to playing, twice as loudly as before. While I played, I reflected on the following things:
My dad was insane.
My brothers were also insane (even Maedhros, but he was cool so that made up for the insane-ness).
I rocked, but no one cared about me rocking because I wasn't supposed to rock.
See Thing #1 again.
I was totally broke, so I couldn't go anywhere.
I didn't have any friends due to my strong belief that most people were idiots (and no one really wanted to hang out with a weird boy who wore black all the time anyway).
I was being punished really harshly for something really dumb.
See thing #1 again.
Something downstairs smelled like potato soup.
Mmm, potato soup. That could only mean one thing. I got off my bed and went downstairs to the kitchen to talk to Mom.
Being a royal family, of course we had servants, but Mom liked to do most of the cooking herself. She'd come from a fairly poor Northeastern family who didn't have any servants, and so she'd had to do most of the housework herself. Old habits die hard, I guess.
"Hey, Mom," I said, entering the kitchen and hopping up onto the table in the center of the room. "So we're having soup for supper?"
"Yes, we are. Get down from there before ye hurt yerself."
"Mom, I'm just sitting on the table. I'm hardly going to break any of my bones."
"Well, perhaps I don't want ye getting me nice clean table all dirty," Mom said, smiling. "So to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, eh?"
I sighed. "I dunno. I just felt the need to talk to someone who doesn't consider me to be either crazy or a screw-up."
"Maglor, yer father doesn't think of ye as a screw-up."
"You're required to say that, Mom. You're married to the guy."
"Sure and don't ye have any faith in yer elders?"
"Nope. Lost that years ago." I sighed again. "Mom, I don't want to go up north with Dad. Can't you convince him to let me stay home?"
"Now, Maglor, ye know I'm not goin' to do that. It's yer father's right to punish ye how he thinks he should. And ye can't deny that the punishment fits the crime."
"But it's completely stupid. I skipped one lesson! Why should I be subjected to a week of torture because of that?"
"Do ye want my advice, Maglor?" said Mom. "Go, and don't complain. Perhaps it'll work out better than ye think. Ye never know what'll happen."
"You make it sound like this is going to be some epic journey," I laughed. "Sorry, Mom, but I doubt it'll be anything that dramatic."
"Hmm," said Mom. "Well, go along with it anyway. To please yer father if nothing else. I'd actually like to come with ye if I could, but I have to look after yer brothers."
"Yeah, I know. I guess that's one good thing about all this—I get to spend some time away from this madhouse." I got off the table and kissed Mom on the cheek. "Thanks, Mom. You're wicked cool."
"And so are ye, my boy. Now go on and do your schoolwork."
Having absolutely no reason to do my schoolwork, I decided to go and chill in the library for a while anyway. Not that I was going to read or anything. Reading was for smart people like Maedhros. But the library was usually pretty quiet, and quiet was what I needed right now.
I threw myself down into my favorite armchair and closed my eyes. Now, this is the life, I thought. If I could just spend all my time in here I'd be way less pissed-off at the world. No Dad, no idiotic brothers, no forge…total paradise. Well, at least I could hang out here for now…
"Maglor! You need to wake up! It's time for supper!"
With a groan, I opened my eyes and stretched out my arms. "Was I asleep?"
"Yes, you were," said Romenella, the cook's daughter, who had woken me up. "But that's okay, you look like you needed it."
Romenella was a nice girl, but she kind of freaked me out sometimes. This was because it was really obvious that she had a crush on me and would go out of her way all the time to run into me. Flattering, yeah, but a little weird. Unlike Maedhros, I wasn't used to girls acting like this around me.
"You know it, sister," I said, standing up quickly. "See you later."
"Hey, wait a second," said Romenella. "Is it true you're going away tomorrow?"
"Um, yeah," I said. "For three weeks."
She blushed. "I'll miss you."
Yep. You and everyone else, girlfriend.
