Title: Tululap
Fandom: Silmarillion
Challenge: Tape
Other prompt: N/A
Rating: G
Length: 1000 words in a 10 drabble sequence
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Zana, Morgynleri & Runa for encouragement & sanity-checking.
Historically, any flexible, narrow woven band could be called tape, as in 'twill-tape'. Athletic tape, for protecting fighter's hands, or supporting joints, and the like, sticky or otherwise is the other sense that applies to this piece.
Title is intended to mean 'support wrap'
Summary: Maedhros had observed, but never asked. "Why? Why do you do that, wrap your ankles, every morning, no matter whether the day will be spent running about in armor or pursuing ideas in the lightest of summer tunics?"


Maedhros watched as Fingon took the long, narrow strips of cleverly woven linen and wound them snugly around his ankles and the arches of his feet. He had watched This process more times then he could count, he realized, from the very first camping trip that Findekáno had come with them on, barely the height of Tyelko’s chest (and he’d not come into his own height yet either), through to Beleriand and the morning before the Fifth Battle. And now here, Returned, again in Valinor, in new flesh. Hroar that remembered only some of the injuries done the preceding form.

He had observed, but never asked. "Why? Why do you do that, wrap your ankles, every morning, no matter whether the day will be spent running about in armor or pursuing ideas in the lightest of summer tunics."

Fingon answered readily, which Maedhros suspected would not have been the case before; he would not have denied Maedhros an answer, but it would not have come so easily."To support my ankles and feet. Just as I wear shoes unless I am actually in the water, and even then, sometimes. And as I do my wrists for sword and forge work."

"But you asked why, not what."

He paused, seeking for words, and Maedhros wondered that they had never had this conversation before. He even knew how to wind the springy linen tapes as Fingon preferred, what it took to weave them, the song and tension that gave them their resilience, how best to clean and store them, but all of that was because they were important to Fingon, not because he understood the reason for their importance. He did understand that for all his physical impetuosity, Fingon preferred to think before he spoke, especially about difficult, private, or important things.

This, Maedhros thought, was probably all three. He waited with undemanding patience. Presently, that patience was rewarded, and Fingon began to speak.

"You know that Faniel was begotten a seven-day before I was, and that my mother and grandmother spent the first season of our growing in Tirion. The second season, they spent together, in a house well up the slope of the Pelori, above Handstovanen, on the seaward side. -- Atto took me there once, when I was still quite small. I wonder if it was ever rebuilt after the Pelóri were raised? -- Enjoying the mingled sea and mountain air.

They had been there a double-dozen Minglings, when the Fume came from over the sea. The faintest haze in the air, the not even a hint of bitter-ash in the breeze. The first of the great furnaces had been breached in Angband, igniting the restless river of molten stone that lay below, and it erupted upward, sending a cloud of poisoned air up into the uppermost winds, silent and scentless. An accident, not malice. The uppermost winds flung it across the sea, but it was heavier than true air, and began to fall as it reached the shores of Aman.

My mother, my grandmother, breathed it in, unknowing. It did not harm them, Elves grown, bathed in years of Treelight. But Faniel and I, and another double-hand of begotten-not-yet-born were affected. Manwë noticed the fume quickly, as it passed over the Pelori, and the Treelight made it apparent, destroying it as quickly as discovered, so no others were harmed. No one, not Este, not Yavanna, not Manwë, knew what the harm would be to us un-born, but understood there would be harm. To bone ends and ligaments, for me. -- feet, ankles, wrists, collarbones for me. Faniel's hurt is more extensive.

Este and Vana did what they could for all of us. Strengthening, repairing, I suppose we taught them quite a bit in a way. About dealing with certain types of injury at any rate. I could ride before I could walk, you know. Or mayhap you did not. I did not properly meet you until I could run as I wished, if I wrapped my feet. Orome taught me how."

Fingon stopped, looking at the linen in his hand that his fingers had folded and pleated into an abstract shape as he spoke. "The short answer is annoyingly fragile bones."

"And, for whatever reason, sufficiently part of who I am in hroa that they are still annoyingly fragile, but no longer affected by cold. For which I am quite grateful."

He smoothed out the linen and finished the wrapping, wiggling his toes on the cool slate of the floor, smiling the little lopsided smile few but Maedhros were privileged to see. "And, in a roundabout way, it did let me know some of what could be done about your shoulder, so I cannot complain.

Certainly Maedhros wasn't going to complain, though his Returned body bore no reminders of that trauma.

He’d heard the quip about Fingon riding before he could walk, but had thought it hyperbole, or exaggeration, something like a joke (and certainly, Fingon rode extremely well, confident, intrepid, communicating effortlessly with nearly any horse - any animal willing to be ridden, really). That it was quite literally true did explain a few things. Though not why Fingon was holding one wrist in the other hand, tucked close, and not looking at him. That, as Maedhros had learned from long acquaintance and careful observation, was Fingon feeling unexpectedly vulnerable. Maedhros wasn't sure why, there was nothing to be ashamed of.

Though, thinking back to their youth, that would not have stopped some of their contemporaries from mockery or ridicule. Never in Nelyo's presence of course. But these were new days, and there was no reason not to try to make things better. He sat up and wrapped his arms around Fingon's shoulders, holding him tight. "Thank you for telling me. And I hope you know that I would love you even if we had no working limbs between us, though I'm glad that's not the case."

Fingon's sideways smile reappeared, tension easing. "I do know. I'm glad I told you."