A/N Thanks all for your enthusiasm for this story! This week, we get a closer look at the family in Newt's suitcase and the family Maglor lost...

Chapter Seven: Family

This was about tactics.

That was the only way he could justify this to himself.

A tactical compromise, yes, that was what it was. Maglor had made many of those in his time. He established quickly that he was at a very unfair disadvantage, since he was arguing in a language he barely spoke, plus he could already tell that Newt had reserves of both stubbornness and impulsivity worthy of a Fëanorion. Reasoning that he hadn't been given much of a choice in the matter, he reluctantly delayed his planned departure and gave in, with the dubious consolation that taking an offer of three days' respite from self-sufficiency was certainly not the worst thing he'd ever done.

He could use the improbable situation to his advantage. It was getting harder and harder to avoid humans, and would probably continue to do so. If he at least spoke a few words of this language, he could work out how to warn them away when they got too close. Not to mention, Newt could teach him about these new powers humans possessed and, more importantly, how to avoid them. It was really just a strategy to enable him to extend his endless penitential pilgrimage for centuries to come. He wasn't supposed to be enjoying it.

Newt, however, was making that last condition rather difficult.

As soon as he'd agreed to the arrangement, Newt sprang to his feet and led Maglor out on a tour of his glorious and bizarre personal world. Before he knew it, Maglor was being introduced to all of the strange creatures that had been making those mysterious noises last night.

Hence, his introductory English vocabulary was rather unusual: occamy, bowtruckle, moke, lobalug, jarvey, demiguise and thestral being among his first words in the language. They would be next to useless in informing other humans to stay away from him, but he couldn't very well police which words he remembered. His inner scholar had been well and truly woken up by the masses of new information surrounding him, and he hoarded the knowledge away on instinct before he even realized he was doing it.

The first few creatures he met reacted to him more predictably than Dougal had, shying away nervously or becoming defensive as he approached. But all it took was a few words from Newt, chiding or calming, and they would lose all that good sense and come over to investigate him. Dougal's presence seemed to help with that: he accompanied them on the tour, loping along easily at Maglor's side like a familiar. Ironic, really, given how many times Maglor had complained about Celegorm's faithful sidekick Huan, albeit often in jest. His brother would probably find it hilarious if he knew, and Maglor found himself almost smiling at that thought. Almost.

And the creatures…First Age Middle Earth had seen some strange things, but the inhabitants of Newt's case could certainly rival them.

The occamy, with its mesmerising shimmering scales and air of clear contentedness, lazily curled up in the hollowed-out bole of a tree, as if the Valar had reclaimed the twisted nature of Morgoth's dragons and remade them, without any warped anger and destructive impulses.

The mokes, lobalugs and jarveys, which he recognised from his brief imprisonment the previous night, and only made him wonder more about exactly what his mysterious protector did, as he realised that he wasn't the only creature Newt had rescued last night.

The bowtruckle, which drew a laugh from Maglor for the first time in four entire ages. There is simply no other way to respond when, excited and stunned at the revelation that not all the trees have gone silent, one attempts to address a baby Ent in an adapted form of Entish and it interrupts with a rude noise, twiggy arms on its hips. Newt's voice took on a scolding tone after that, and the bowtruckle responded with an affronted medley of squeaks and chitters, gesticulating wildly with its leaves. Newt settled the argument with a firm and decisive final point, and the bowtruckle poked him in the ear before scurrying to hide itself in Newt's waistcoat pocket. Maglor laughed in surprise as much as anything; note to self for future reference: in these times, just because it's a living tree person, that doesn't mean it's an Ent. The Ents Maglor had known would have considered Pickett the bowtruckle far too hasty.

And then there was the thestral. Had he seen it in another time, he might have assumed it to be one of Morgoth's twisted creations due to its appearance, but experience had taught him that fair-seeming things were not always necessarily so. Unlike the other creatures, the thestral did not retreat from him. It simply stood there, regarding him quietly from where it grazed across the field. One of its wings was encased in a splint like his own; the similarity prompted a strange sort of fellow feeling. Monstrous in their different ways, they were both injured beings whom Newt had brought to his sanctuary to be healed. It trotted over to them when Newt clicked his tongue softly, but bizarrely enough it ignored its caregiver entirely and bent its proud head before Maglor instead. Instinctively, he reached out to stroke the chilled smoothness of its skull-like face, surprised to find that the contact didn't cause the pain in his hand to flare up as badly it usually did. The thestral whickered softly and pressed its head into his hand, and Maglor was so entranced by its haunting, stripped-back kind of elegance that he barely noticed Newt working over the injured wing, and the thestral too seemed oblivious to it. The more he looked at it, the more he thought it beautiful in its own way. The thestral's beauty was a beauty of scarcity and exposure, as if something had eroded all its protective layers and left it raw, its power and vulnerability both on display in the harsh yet striking lines of its body.

Perhaps there was more than one reason that Maglor felt such an affinity with this creature.

The moment ended when Newt finished whatever he'd been doing to the wing and returned to Maglor's side. The thestral pulled back, nodded gravely to Maglor, nuzzled gently into Newt's hair and then trotted away.

"Thank you," Newt said to Maglor with a pleased little grin, then beckoned him off to the next habitat before he'd quite had chance to process the flood of warmth that came from the realisation that he'd finally managed to do something for Newt that was actually helpful. Dougal nudged his leg to get him going again, and he shook himself free of his shock and followed Newt through the thestral's paddock and into a sun-dappled glade.

He looked around curiously, but there was no sign of the inhabitant anywhere. Newt produced a vial of rich amber liquid from the basket he was carrying and proceeded to fill some camouflaged feeders which were hidden amongst the greenery. Retreating, he ushered Maglor over to a fallen log and they both sat down. Then, Newt closed his eyes and trilled.

Throughout the tour of the case, Maglor had been fascinated by the things that Newt could do with his voice. Bellowing summoning calls, soft calming chitters, conversational little squeaks mixed in with his words – he had evidently made a study of the way these creatures communicated and attempted to imitate them, not unlike Maglor's early attempts to use the sounds of natural fauna to inspire his music. And that delicate trilling call he just made: there was a bird in Valinor that sounded very similar, and sitting in a forest and hearing that sound, Maglor's vocal cords were in action before he had chance to think it through. He echoed the birdcall.

And the sound of an unfamiliar caller had probably scared whatever bird they were waiting for off, he really should have stopped to consider, he'd just got too comfortable and made a mistake: but Newt was looking at him with an astonished and delighted smile, motioning with his hand and repeating a word that sounded like again. Watching for Newt's reaction to check he hadn't misinterpreted, he made the call a second time, and Newt's expression confirmed that he wanted exactly that, so he continued. A faint whirring caught his attention and soon little golden balls of feathers were whizzing around, answering his calls in between sipping from the feeders. They were golden snidgets, Newt explained, and then a slightly frightening expression of mischief stole over his features and he had Maglor extend his left arm, palm down, then scattered some tiny seed over his forearm. Maglor raised his eyebrows incredulously. The snidgets seemed to be tolerating his presence, probably due to his vocal talents, but to assume that they'd dare to come near to him seemed a bit of a stretch. Nevertheless, he resumed his calls when prompted, listening carefully to the tiny variations in the snidgets' vocalisations and adjusting his own accordingly. In response, the tiny golden blurs ventured nearer and nearer to him as they zipped across the clearing, until at last one of them hovered in front of his face, its head cocked inquisitively as it sounded him out. He chirped at it very quietly, it trilled back, and then, deeming him safe, it snatched up a seed from his arm and zoomed across the clearing. Soon the others were following its lead, and Maglor did his best to hold still against the ticklish sensations of the snidgets' feathers as they brushed his arm. The seed disappeared very quickly, and most of the birds left as soon as it did, a few of them circling him before they went. The last one, however, settled herself on his wrist, cheeping contentedly as he echoed her. He glanced over to Newt, who was beaming like the cat who'd got all the cream, and Dougal, who was lazing in a patch of sunlight, looking extremely satisfied.

And a little astonished at himself, he couldn't help smiling back.

Newt never tired of watching people he cared about discover his case, despite the thrill of nerves that always accompanied it. It was an act of trust for him, like he was baring his soul, and even now, despite many successes, there was always a tiny part of him that prepared itself for rejection. He had no idea how much contact Maglor's people had had with magical creatures, or what their beliefs about them were, and he was unsure whether his newest rescue would be amazed, terrified or angered by his new environs. But Maglor surprised him yet again: he needn't have worried at all.

Maglor had been nervous, initially, holding back from the creatures as if unsure of his right to be there, and sensing his unease they in turn, were skittish before Newt calmed them. Katarina the thestral, though, had bucked this trend entirely, gazing at Maglor as if in a profound sort of understanding. It was unsurprising that Maglor could see her, given Newt's theory about the catastrophe that had befallen his people, but still it made him ache to see such a clear demonstration of his grief. Katarina was intrigued by Maglor, to the point of barely twitching while Newt checked over her splinted wing: she'd tried to shrug him off irritably on previous checks, and Newt was pleasantly surprised by how easy having a distracted thestral made the task.

He could make neither head nor tail of Maglor's interaction with Pickett, however. He'd seemed delighted to see the bowtruckle and addressed him with some undulating groans which had provoked Pickett into an outraged rant. From what he could glean from the irritated chittering, Pickett had taken offence at being mistaken for a 'boring old senile piece of deadwood.' Whether or not he had understood this, it made Maglor laugh, and even the few seconds of that sound like clear chiming bells made Newt determined to make sure that he heard it again. He'd taken Pickett to task for rudeness, of course, even whilst reassuring him that just because Maglor was human-sized and human-shaped, he could never replace Pickett in Newt's affections. Decades of regarding Newt as his home tree hadn't so much resolved Pickett's attachment issues as transformed him into the world's biggest twig-sized drama queen.

Newt had to admit it: he was just a tiny bit jealous of Maglor's snidget calls. Years of research and carefully training his voice to echo them, and in a few minutes Maglor had surpassed his best efforts, adjusting his vocalisations until they were indistinguishable from the real ones. Attempting to get them to eat off his forearms was a long shot – it had taken Newt months with these particular birds to develop enough trust for that, but the accuracy of Maglor's mimicry had evidently convinced them that he was safe, and any slight jealousy Newt felt was dwarfed by full-blown admiration when one of them chose to stay resting on his wrist rather than taking off once the food incentive was gone. One morning in the case and Maglor had connected with the both solemn thestral and the energetic snidgets, and Newt could already see that he belonged. He just hoped that Maglor could see that too.

He still had work to do with his other rescues from the previous night, so once the last snidget finally gave Maglor an affectionate nip with its beak then flew away, Newt left the Elda on the terrace outside the hut, with a full table of food, water, and some awkward gesturing to indicate that he could make himself at home. Happy that Maglor was settled, he spent the next hour cursing like a sailor in order to earn enough respect from the jarveys to be allowed to comb their fur and check them over. (Tina had found this process hilarious the first time she witnessed it: apparently she didn't think Newt had it in him to utter anything stronger than his habitual 'bugger', let alone contend with a jarvey's love of profanity. He still wasn't sure whether he was flattered or offended by that.) He continued by extracting and testing the rest of the necessary samples from the lobalugs, then setting a potion to brew to treat their incipient sac-blight. With the correct treatment, they would all be ready to be released in a few days' time: Newt just hoped that they would be the only creatures he'd be letting go.

He returned to the terrace and grinned at the sight that greeted him. Maglor was sitting on one of the benches, his regal features bearing an incredibly put-upon expression. The cause of this was perched on his shoulders, working clever fingers through the tangled mass of his hair, and chattering non-stop in what Newt recognised as a lecture on proper care of one's fur; it had been directed at him enough times to know it well.

"You've got your work cut out there, Dougal," he remarked as he made his way over to the unlikely pair, and judging by Maglor's scowl, he had inferred Newt's meaning.

"Though I'm one to talk, I know" he added with a rueful smile and a gesture towards his own unruly mop, even more ruffled than usual from chasing a particularly mischievous jarvey. The tone of Dougal's complaints changed as he directed his stream of chatter at Newt, indicating the tangles in the impressive black waves with a few whines of frustration.

"You're doing a sterling job there, but I reckon a comb might help," Newt concluded, then went to dig one out that he was pretty sure had only been used for human hair, but spelled it clean anyway, just in case. Maglor snatched up the comb as soon as he saw it with a murmured thanks, waited for Dougal to jump down onto his lap, then started dragging it through the tangled locks, gripping it in his left hand in a manner that looked anything but comfortable.

"Here, let me," Newt murmured, instinctively going to help. He plucked the comb from the gnarled fingers and took over but stopped on seeing that every single muscle in Maglor's body seemed to clench the moment Newt touched his hair.

"Alright?" he asked, leaning round so he could see Maglor's face. He looked as if he'd just seen a ghost.

"What's wrong? Did I hurt you"

Maglor simply stared for a moment, blinked, shook his head as if to clear it and then blew out a long exhale.

"Ularort," he attempted, screwing his face up in distaste as he realised he'd mispronounced it.

"Alright," Newt corrected him gently, still a little concerned about what just happened.

"Ala-right," Maglor said carefully, then gestured to his hair again. "Alright."

Taking that as permission, Newt resumed where he'd left off, noticing immediately that as well as being tangled, the hair was full of crusted sea salt and the odd pine needle.

"I bet you'll feel heaps better for having it washed," he decided, patting Maglor's shoulder in a signal to stay put while he headed off to grab what he needed, pondering what could be so significant about a simple touch to the hair.

He doesn't know what it means. He doesn't know what it means. He doesn't know what it means.

Maglor repeated it over and over again like a mantra, clinging to it desperately, since it seemed to be the only way that he could deal with the feeling of Newt's hands in his hair without either taking off and hiding or breaking down into sobs.

It had been amusing when 'little Círdan' had taken it upon himself to see to Maglor's grooming, clearly following his instincts to deal with his friend's matted hair. However, once Newt got involved, he had unwittingly crossed an unspoken line and Maglor didn't know how to convince his emotions that it meant nothing.

Hair, for the Eldar, was highly symbolic. Entire stories could be written in the intricate weaving of elven tresses, and the neglected state of Maglor's proclaimed his state of exile and penance as effectively as if he had worn it on a sign around his neck. One did not simply casually touch another elf's hair: to do so, you had to be either close family, a lover, or a friend trusted enough to be called a brother-of-the-heart. To take care of another's hair was to cement that trust and love, to declare a bond at the level of the fëa. But this time, of course, it could not mean anything, since Newt was blithely unaware of just how many elven conventions he was barrelling through with what he was doing. The relationship here, if anything, was that of a keeper tending to a stray he'd rescued, nothing more. Yet the dissonance between knowing this and what Maglor's instincts were telling him was extremely disconcerting, and he still didn't know whether he wanted to disappear from the situation entirely or beg Newt never to stop.

He'd told Newt to go ahead because he thought he could handle it, and because he had no idea how to explain why such an interaction simply couldn't happen. The man would have probably concluded he was hiding a head wound or something and insisted on checking anyway. Besides, he didn't really have much hope of taming it with his right arm still splinted, and it was irritating him that he hadn't had the chance to wash out the sea salt in some freshwater after his attempted rescue mission yesterday.

The only problem was getting the outrageous little part of him that wished Newt really was declaring himself a brother-of-the-heart to shut up. And then throw itself into the Void, preferably. That part of him was not helping. One bit.

The feeling of Newt's hands oh-so-gently teasing out the snarls, working warm water through his hair and combing out the debris, resurrected an entire landslide of memories that brought a different kind of pain than those of violence and death he'd spent centuries obsessing over. So many memories of his brothers, before battles and council meetings, training sessions and embassies, their hands working each other's hair, braiding their bond stronger with each challenge they faced together. His current one-handed state brought back one memory particularly vividly.

Maedhros never cried when it might have been expected. He recovered from Thangorodrim in his own unique way. He gasped, cursed and yelled his way through the painful healing of his wrenched shoulder, sat there shaking with a terrible expression on his face after nightmares and flashbacks, curled up and went silent for days after finding that his brothers never once mounted a rescue mission, and then suddenly started commanding them again like he'd never been away.

But that wasn't to say he never cried. It was the little things that really moved him to sob out his grief. The day when that burnished copper hair they had shorn out of necessity finally grew back long enough to braid, Maglor put in the warrior braids for him, taking his time over the short lengths, wanting to linger in this moment of triumph as long as possible. He impulsively added a new pattern to the edge of the braid and saw Maedhros raise his eyebrows in the mirror.

"Victor of a hard battle?" he asked sceptically. "Hardly appropriate, don't you think?"

"You are," Maglor asserted quietly. "The battle began after you were captured. And you won."

"I won? How did you reach that conclusion?"

"You're here, I'm braiding your hair and you're arguing with me. That's victory to me."

"You have some strange definitions for a someone who's supposed to be so good with words."

"'Supposed to be!' I'm offended, brother. I am good with words and I don't get definitions wrong. So wear those victory braids with pride and if anyone dares contradict your right to them, we will be having…words."

"Do you also have a flexible definition of 'words', o minstrel mine?'

Maglor smiled devilishly as he drew back, indicating that he'd finished.

"Indeed I do."

"Good. So do I. And I am quite capable of having my own 'words' with my detractors, if it comes to that, though I appreciate your offer."

A moment, in which the words 'an offer that gives too little, too late,' were acknowledged in Maedhros' brief glance away from the mirror and Maglor's grimace of guilt. Neither brother spoke them, though. Pushing aside the awkward moment, Maedhros used his left hand to propel himself to his feet. He stepped forward as if to take Maglor's place, made a miniscule motion with his left hand and his stump, and in that moment his face fell. Maglor saw the movement and he knew what it was about.

"You don't have to," he reassured his brother, shaking his unbound tresses behind him. "I'll ask Celegorm later."

"That's as well, because I can't," Maedhros spat bitterly, sinking down next to Maglor on the bed, clutching his stump in a death grip and turning his face away. Maglor placed a hand on top of Maedhros', hoping to get him to loosen his grip, and had to school his features to hide his shock when Maedhros turned back to him with tears coursing down his face.

"It's alright, Maedhros, of course I don't expect you to, it doesn't matter," Maglor tried to reassure him.

"It's not alright, don't you get it, Káno? Look at me! How am I supposed to protect you, all of you, if I can't even braid your hair?"

"We'll protect each other, like we always have, it's not all on you," Maglor placated him, prying his grasping hand away from the still-sensitive stump.

"So this is how it's going to be, then. Me, weighing you all down, taking your care and attention and not giving anything back because they reduced me to this!"

Finally, Maglor understood exactly what was distressing his brother. It wasn't merely the loss of his abilities, but more so the fact that he couldn't reciprocate his brothers' attentions; he worried that the loss of this outward sign of their connection was symptomatic of a deeper fracture in their fraternal bond. Maglor knew what he had to do. He slid down onto the cushion Maedhros had just vacated and guided his left hand to his hair.

"Braid my hair, then."

"What part of I can't do you not understand?"

"I understand perfectly. Wordsmith, remember. I just disagree. I'll help. Give me the strands to hold when you're not working them and we'll do it together. We'll manage a standard double braid like that, I reckon."

"You're not a commoner."

"No, but I don't care about announcing myself a great poet. Everyone already knows that. I care about declaring that I'm your brother and nothing will ever change that."

"It'll be messy."

"So's Middle Earth, these days. I'll fit right in."

That finally surprised a laugh out of Maedhros, and he wiped away his tears before moving into position and picking up the comb. Several attempts and a few awkward hand collisions later and they'd managed a passable double braid. He would never have dreamed of going out like that back in Valinor, but here, after everything, he preferred it to the richest coronet he'd ever worn.

Maedhros got better at one-handed braiding, and Maglor got better at assisting. Later, when it was just the two of them, he'd still braid Maglor's hair and the easy familiarity of it was a comfort when everything else was falling apart. Maglor had once come across Elros braiding Elrond's hair, sitting on his right hand and using only his left, while Elrond helped. When he asked them what they were doing, Elros had replied, "it's what brothers do, isn't it? It means we love each other."

"Yes, it does," he'd told them, wondering just how these boys always knew exactly where to find a long-dormant spark in a Kinslayer's frozen spirit and how to bring it back to life.

"Maglor? Maglor?"

He came back to himself with a jolt, realising that Newt had just finished combing out his damp hair. Lost in the memory, his hand had strayed to his scalp and he'd picked up a lock, ready for his brother to braid. Newt was leaning round again, trying to work out what he was doing by the looks of it. He shrugged and dropped his hand, averting his gaze. He heard Newt's sudden 'ah' of understanding, then he was suddenly hit by a powerful gust of warm air, which dried his hair instantly, making it ruffle around his face. Newt gathered the strands into three sections, his calloused fingertips ghosting over Maglor's cheeks as he did so, then plaited the hair in one simple braid down his back and tied it off. Exhausted by the effort of keeping his emotions in check, Maglor had to work hard not to break into hysterics at that.

After all, Newt had no way of knowing he'd just given his centuries-old Kinslayer a child's braid.