That fucking song

In the history lessons about the First Age, Rûsa and master Rumil had now came to a important event:

How his mother had been saved by her cousin Fingon.

"It must have been the harp she reacted on, because there is no way she would be able to do anything louder than a whisper…"

Understandably, Rûsa was rather sceptical about one of the details mentioned in the history book. Having lived in Angband himself, he knew that Fingon must have been extremely lucky to avoid discovery, because the orcs on guard duty must have been distracted by something else. Like one of those randomly started fights that orcs could create over a disagreement or something. Also the very dry air in Angband was not exactly gentle on those raising their voices.

"I can not say anything, Rûsa, for I was not present at that time. Yet perhaps you might ask your lady mother about whatever that detail is true or not?"

~X~X~X~X~X~X

With Maglor playing on his harp not far from her, Maedhros were in the middle of hanging up freshly washed laundry on the clothesline when her son arrived out in the garden. And he was holding a book in one hand.

"Coming out directly after the history lesson? Is there something you found to be strange?"

"Yes, today we read about how Fingon saved you, ammë."

Having a reasonably little idea of what may have made her son uncomfortable during the lesson, Maedhros quickly hung up the bed sheet so she could face him.

"You should know perfectly well that clothes were not given out freely among the slaves, or be a stranger to how a female body might look like, even if it is in a more starved state."

Rûsa shook his head, showing how she had misunderstood.

"Not that! It is the mention of him singing as he found you…"

At once, Maedhros made a unexpected face of loathing when recalling exactly what kind of song it had been. Maglor, who had blackmailed Fingon into revealing which song it was, under the threat of create an embarrassing song that would tell how a adolescent Fingon really had been having a crush on the much older Maedhros despite how much he would deny it, spotted a chance to annoy Maedhros by playing his music loudly just like he sometimes had done back in the Years of the Trees when the whole sibling group was growing up. Naturally, she did recognize the sound without the lyrics sung.

"NOT THAT FUCKING SONG!"

To his surprise, Rûsa got treated to the sight of his mother tossing a wet tunic straight on Maglor, the hit so powerful that his oldest uncle was knocked over to the ground with harp and all, before storming off to somewhere else with an aura of pure loathing.

"Uncle...what was that?"

Sitting up, ignoring how silly he looked with the tunic over half of himself and the harp, Maglor responded:

"Your mother grew to loathe a song that was popular at the royal court when she was old enough to start having some form of social duties there. Someone of the nobles thought himself clever by creating a rather poorly rhyming song about her beauty, which caught attention and it is still a way to annoy her even after all those years."

When Maglor played the song on the harp for his nephew, Rûsa proved himself to be Maedhros' son by disliking it at once.

"That noble did not have any lessons in basic music, right?"

Not what Maglor could recall. Of course, music was a important part of education in the upper classes, and it could be that Maglor had remembered wrong, but Rûsa had a point: that noble had not been a natural at music like Maedhros' brother.

~X~X~X~X~X~X

author note: chapter was partly inspired by this

post/611031703154278400/i-just-love-the-idea-that-the-song-that-helped