Different as night and day
As it had been part of his life since birth, Yuë knew that there was little he could do on days when his breathing issues simply were too much. Today was one such day, when dance training, writing or even leaving his bed for longer times was out of question.
Great, and here I wanted to plan for the dance contest…perhaps even do some practice...
The bruise from yesterday was still visible on his chest, now having turned a purple colour which seemed even worse against the white skin because of his albinism, but Yuë knew that it would soon heal, it just needed some time.
Looking around in his room as he slowly turned around in bed, Yuë saw on the other prizes he had worn for his dancing. A few others for his writing as well, having creative ideas for theater plays which was popular among those who found themselves lucky to be given the chance to play what he had written. Not any big prizes, but they were a proof of his actual talents, not for being given pity for his sickly health or someone trying to win his favor simply because he was the second son to his mother Maedhros, who was second-in-line to the Noldorin Kingship after his grandfather Fëanor.
As if being fifth-in-line to the throne ever have been useful for me. It is not like I even want to become High King…
Yuë shuddered at the mere idea of having to stand in front of a large crowd and trying to give some kind of speech. No, even by using Ósanwë because he was physically mute, it would not go well. He knew that his withdrawn personality would not be accepted, especially as the position of High King was both a social and political one, where the ruler in question needed to be seen by those he ruled over. And yet somehow the irony was that despite the Kinslayings, by abdicating in favor of her uncle Fingolfin, Maedhros had still ended up in a role of leadership in the wars against Morgoth and by outliving so many relatives to the end of the War of Wrath, had proven herself to somehow be an uncrowned High Queen for those who followed the House of Fëanor well until the very end.
No, it was perfectly fine for Yuë that his sister Cúwen was been him and Rûsa in the order of succession, with their younger sister Lówen following him. His great-grandfather had needed to change the order of his succession when so many of his grandchildren had ended up with daughters as offspring, and after the Exile in Middle-earth, the female members of the Noldorin royal family was not going to accept that they could only inherit the throne after their male relatives. And Fëanor himself had made an early protest against the rules so long ago, by keeping Maedhros as his heiress even after the birth of his first son Maglor.
Politics are so boring… how can the courtiers think that everyone in the family would want to be part of the power intrigues at the royal court in Tirion…?
As if his many uncles even had time for playing that kind of games meant for gaining small amount of power. which could be easily lost again. Formenos was not going to run itself, and the soldiers needed to be kept in shape if their old battle skills ever became needed.
"Yuë? I was asked to sweep clean the roof tiles here outside the window to your chamber, so you know what I am doing out here," Rûsa called, before peeking in through the window, looking as if he just had been fighting with some of the birds who had their old nests on the roof, especially with a couple of loose feathers and dust in his dark red hair caught up in his normal braid over one shoulder. Yuë merely waved lazy in dismissing with one hand from the bed, more or less telling his brother to not bother about him and keep working with the task.
As Rûsa swept the roof tiles while carefully balancing so he would not slip over the edge, Yuë watched his older brother in the corner of his eye. He had never really been jealous of Rûsa for being their mother's heir, if one did not count the times of bitter resentment when he recalled the story of how he had ended up with his sickly health in the first place.
I hope that deranged woman really suffers in the punishment of having to live a mortal life over and over again…!
It felt good to have someone to blame in times when he felt bitter about not being healthy, since Yuë knew the whole story and how it had started. He did not blame his mother, since she could not have known how a rejected suitor from her youth would be so consumed by the humiliation he had faced instead of getting his offer of marriage accepted and a deep desire for revenge, by trying to ruin Maedhros even more after her rebirth and destroy any chances she had for reminding people that she had not been born as a Kinslayer, with blood on her hands and murder on her mind already from the very moment she drew her first breath.
"Whoa!"
Rûsa had almost slipped on a roof tile, which was hard to avoid given that he was half a meter taller and, of course, weighting a lot more than Yuë thanks to his muscle mass, but managed to avoid any danger of falling down.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Inside the house, down in the kitchen:
Rog saw that Maedhros was thinking seriously about something as they were washing the dishes together after breakfast, he had learned to read her mood by her eyes over the long time as they had been married, and personally he thought that he could guess what was on her mind.
"You are thinking about our dear moon child again?" he asked, referring to the family nickname Yuë had gotten as an infant because he had both been conceived and born at a night with a full moon.
"Yes, I worries for how it will go for him in the matters of the heart and a possible marriage in the future…"
It was not that Maedhros had anything against the young lady who had caught the heart of her younger son, but at the same time, she was not sure whether it should be encouraged or not.
"The problems Rûsa and Maeglin faced from prejudice-minded people when words came out that the High King had allowed their marriage to happen? That it was not a marriage meant to happen based on that they shared one common great-grandfather in the High King?"
Another nod, which showed some of her unspoken worry.
"Unlike Aredhel, Finrod is remembered as a hero, the golden prince of his family. Maeglin was not the most sought-after princess in their generation when it came to marriage, but Saira is a child of Valinor, free from the trauma so many of us suffered by being born in this Fourth Age. If both my sons were to marry a second-cousin as a wife, people will view it as an attempt from my family to gain more power and preventing others from marrying into the royal family, for all of that uncle Finarfin's line is behind my own family and uncle Fingolfin's descendants in the succession to the throne…"
Even with Finwë having changed the rules about the succession early in the first century of the Fourth Age because of more female descendants among his great-grandchildren, a great contrast to the thirteen grandsons and three granddaughters fathered by his three sons, Maedhros knew that not all among the Noldor had accepted the change. Both her sons and daughters were indirectly suffering from distrust from her past as a Kinslayer, and for her stubborn refusal to reveal who Rûsa's father truly was. But she did not want to drag Taurion into the mess of royal polities among those who was not his own people, not when he had enough with being the chieftain of the Wood clan among the nomadic Avarin clans.
"All those rumours speaking of that I am secretly ashamed of Yuë… that we are hiding him away from the public despite that he is seen sometimes in dance tournaments and taking part of writing contests…"
She was proud of the skills her younger son had been blessed with, but very few knew of how withdrawn Yuë truly was in personality and that he actually preferred to fall into the shadow of his more socially active sisters and he could almost only come alive in his dancing outside the people he felt comfortable around. In fact, Yuë could almost rival Rûsa when it came to avoiding the public duties of a prince so high up in the succession, but part of the escape came from that by living in Formenos and refusing to move from there, they were so far away from the royal court in Tirion that it simply was impossible for her sons to be involved with the court.
"Perhaps we should invite Saira to come and visit us after this dance contest? Having to spend time with her here as a guest in our home, where he would be rude by hiding away in his chambers, may help Yuë break out from his shell and actually bring himself to confess about his feelings for her."
Rog did not say that they should encourage Yuë to hope for something impossible, but Maedhros understood the unspoken words. At the very least, their son should have a chance for love.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Back upstairs Yuë had almost fallen asleep again because there was not much else for him to do on a day like this when his breathing issues was too hard to ignore, when his attention was called again, though for a rather different reason than what he first thought:
"Yuë, can you check whether this is good?"
Rûsa tossed something though the window, and the younger Elf caught the piece of parchment in one hand. Almost right away, his scholarly side cringed at what he saw written down.
You and your endless struggle to try and write the correct grammar, brother…
It was actually a love poem for Maeglin, pretty sweet in fact, but as always when it came to writing down things, Rûsa's handwriting and grammar was an honest mess. Yuë was used to how hopeless his brother was at trying to do a neat handwriting, but he knew that others outside the House of Fëanor actually needed a wordlist, almost a specially written lexion even, in order to be able to decode whatever it was that Rûsa had tried to write.
"It is not the grammar I meant for you to check—is the poem good or not?" Rûsa muttered with slightly reddened cheeks. "I wanted to surprise Maeglin this evening with a nice dinner when she comes home from the forge and why not add in a nice poem as well?" He knew very well that Yuë was far superior to him when it came to writing and reading, not that Rûsa himself really cared about it because as long as it was somewhat legible, his family would figure out the written meaning soon enough. That difference had never been a problem before between them as brothers.
It looks good, so you do not need to change anything in what you already have written down on the parchment. And I just can not understand why some people still finds it so shocking that you chose to be a house-husband by your own will, Yuë could not help but comment in a friendly teasing. Rûsa seemed to have expected such response, given how he smirked in return:
"Well, where else should I spend my free time to paint my drawings, while my wife is the breadwinner by being a smith and I just earn some extra income by selling my paintings? Our dear grandmother's studio for creating her statues? Where all the stone dust from the marble and other decoration stones only would get stuck to the wet paint? Or grandfather's forge, where it would be a risk of that a small spark could set the whole painting on fire in a matter of moments?"
Yuë had to laugh at the mental images his brother made him think off. Rûsa was right, it was for the best that he would create his drawings and paintings in the home where he and Maeglin lived as a married couple, where no one risked to make a mess of the hard work he laid down on each piece of art and causing him to have wasted all the time he needed to paint.
"That reminds me. Here is something for you, little brother."
Again Rûsa tossed over something to Yuë who caught it. The small item turned out to be a miniature drawing of Saira, because Rûsa had never seen any problem with the idea of a marriage between his brother and the daughter of Finrod. Since Yuë already had been secretly in love with Saira for so many years but not dared to take the next step, Rûsa honestly thought that it was high time to simply push things into happening, and the dance contest where Saira would be a guest would be a good starting point in his view on things.
"I will be home at my house if you need my help in something."
Please tell Adamar that I will try and come out in the garden tomorrow for some planning about the dance contest.
Waving with one hand in farewell, Rûsa easy climbed down the ladder he had used to get up on the roof and Yuë was left alone to daydream as he looked on the miniature of Saira.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Author's note:
In my stories Orodreth is the second son of Finarfin, making the siblings five in number and, together with the four cousins from Fingolfin and seven cousins from Fëanor, they are the sixteen grandchildren to Finwë by his sons
The Noldorin royal family have learnt a few lessons from the chaos in the First Age when it came to who that will be the first to inherit the kingship and that people started to question why none of the female family members was made a ruler with so many brothers and cousins dead in battle. Basically I headcanon that there was a huge debate about whatever Turgon or Gil-galad should be the next High King after Fingon, as Turgon was the last living offspring of Fingolfin and Gil-galad was still a child. Add in that Orodreth was the only one with a child of his own among the five children of Finarfin and that with Maedhros, Maglor and Galadriel left as the senior family members remaining at the War of Wrath, they had run out a lot of possible High Kings. (Not sure if Elrond and Elros would have a big claim due to being the great-grandsons of Turgon, which would make them removed very down the line of succession had more their Noldor relatives still been alive)
In case you are confused what Yuë meant about what caused his sickly health, please read the Warg Rider part 2: Sins of the Past, and part 3; Tears of Blood. There is the mentioned details of a rejected suitor of Maedhros from the Years of the Trees, and how he drags his own family into a spiral of self-destruction because he resents not managing to marry into the royal family since Maedhros is the oldest child and heiress to Fëanor, while his wife resents that she was his second choice in marriage and hates Maedhros for the obsession her rejection caused in the husband
Rûsa is meant to suffer from dyslexia, which explains his struggles to read and write properly