Congrats on the milestone! How about Maglor or Maedhros and jewellery, from the worldbuilding prompt list?
Digging up this old prompt for @maedhrosmaglorweek day 3! Have both of them.
"You will jingle as you walk," says Maedhros, "they will hear you coming for miles."
Maglor laughs, and tosses his head so that the dangling silver earrings chime. "A poor minstrel I will make, if my jewellery plays more music than I! No, Nelyo, these will not do." He removes them carefully, and lays them aside in the growing pile of precious metal heaped upon the side-table.
Maedhros, sitting cross-legged on the stone floor of his chambers in Himring, watches him with a faint little frown. "You must choose something," he says; "you cannot go to the feast dressed as plainly as a Vanya monk."
"My songbird's voice is adornment enough," Maglor says blithely, "and anyhow I did not come here to pick out my own gems. We must make some progress on deciding what to bring as gifts."
From the chest Maedhros draws out a long string of pearls, meant to be draped three times around the neck for the full effect. A souvenir from a summer Maglor spent in Alqualondë, long before the light of the Trees went out, or indeed before their father took it into his mind to preserve it. Maglor chose the pearls himself, going up and down a hundred beachside stalls to pick out those most perfectly round and white, and had Finrod his cousin teach him how to string them on a thread of silk before presenting them to Maedhros. How lovely they had looked set against his brother's fair skin; they had seemed almost to glow.
"These – these stones," Maedhros says, hesitant, "we could gift them to the envoys of the Sindar, perhaps."
Maglor swallows. "They are pearls, Nelyo," he says, keeping his voice light. Maedhros blinks at him, and he explains, "They come from the sea, from oysters. We used to get them from the Teleri." He pauses, and then, when Maedhros still looks bewildered, adds, "I do not think it good politics to gift them to the kin of those we slaughtered, whether or not they know of it."
Maedhros' face darkens. "You are right – Nolofinwë's host will murmur to see them, besides." He gives the pearls another troubled look and then sets them aside.
No use, Maglor has learned, in dwelling on these missing spaces in his brother's memory. They frustrate Maedhros enough as it is: and it is nothing personal, Maglor knows, that he has forgotten the pearls were a gift from Maglor. Their Enemy has taken from Maedhros things far more precious than the recollection of a trinket. It does not sting, that Maedhros does not remember.
Maedhros has turned his attention back to the chest before him. These are all his personal jewels, salvaged from their father's house in Tirion in the brief hours they had to pack before setting out on their ill-fated march. In the years of his captivity Maglor would indulge himself, sometimes, and open the chest, and admire the treasure within as though he were yet a fanciful child trying on his brother's baubles; and he would tell himself that he would hear Maedhros' laughing voice at the door any moment now, saying, Are you going through my things again, little magpie?
Maedhros does not much like to wear jewellery, these days. He says that it chafes against his skin, and on darker days that it puts him in mind of chains; occasionally he will consent to Maglor pinning back his hair with a bejewelled clip, or to an unobtrusive pair of earrings, but all his fine gold necklaces and ornate jewel-encrusted bracelets are useless now.
"Too few gemstones," he says now with a frown; "they were more marvellous than the metalwork, and would be better received."
Maglor thinks with some regret of a fine set of rubies his father had made him for his two hundredth begetting-day. Like all the house of Fëanor's best jewels, they were locked in the vault at Formenos, and stolen by Morgoth when he ransacked it.
"I know not how things are done in Doriath," he says, "but in any case the Mithrim Sindar are not over-fond of jewels, much like their Falmari kin. I do not think we need worry that our gifts will seem poor to them; in truth they will know not what to do with them. They wear flowers in their hair oftener than gems."
"It may be different in Doriath," Maedhros argues. "Findaráto says of Menegroth that the very walls are studded with jewels. Perhaps a gift of our own best would go some way towards earning Elwë's favour."
Maglor frowns. "Think you he will come himself, then?"
"Perhaps," says Maedhros, "but even if he does not we must not seem to be ungenerous. Many of those in Nolofinwë's host will be searching for any excuse to name us so." He passes his hand over his eyes, looking tired. Maglor only arrived yesterday, but he has his suspicions about how long his brother had gone without sleep before that. "We must choose presents for them too—"
"You gave Nolofinwë a crown," says Maglor; "surely he will be sated with that!"
The jest makes Maedhros laugh, as it would not coming from any of their other brothers, edged as it would be with resentment or mockery. Maglor is awfully, selfishly glad of that.
"Come here," says Maedhros, "you are distracting me. Help me choose what to give our own kin, at least."
Maglor settles on the floor beside him. "This for Findaráto," he says, picking out a necklace of sapphires that Maedhros never much liked in the first place, "it will go well with his eyes."
Maedhros favours him with a smile. "Well chosen," he says. Then he finds a very fine emerald, set into the front of a copper circlet but easily prised free, and examines it thoughtfully. This, Maglor remembers, is a relic of their father's first experiments with the art of capturing light; it does not shine with a light of its own as do the Silmarils, but catches and magnifies all the daylight coming through the window in a most pleasing manner, reflecting them back in every shade of green imaginable. Maedhros sets it aside, and when Maglor casts him a questioning look blushes and says only, "For Finno."
The next piece Maedhros draws out of the chest is a golden bangle, from Fëanor's filigree phase: the metal worked into the shapes of trees and flowers and leaping horses, studded all over with tiny gems in a multitude of colours. Their father was in a good mood, when he made this, Maglor recalls. The precision of the work appealed to him. Perhaps it was that more than the loveliness of the finished product that made Maedhros fond of it.
"You always liked this one," says Maedhros, his eyes warm now with recollection. "The number of times it turned up on your dressing-table, after I had spent hours searching for it! Here." And he slips the bangle onto Maglor's wrist.
Maglor tenses, forces himself to relax, and takes it off again. "I do not want it," he says, "thank you, Nelyo."
Maedhros blinks at him. "I cannot wear it," he says, "not a bangle, it will be – too tight." He shudders briefly and then masters himself. "You might as well take it, and then someone can have use of it."
You do not want him back, Celegorm spat once; all your mourning is performance only. You are quite content to sit here wearing his crown and playing dress-up with his jewels, in truth.
"I do not want it," Maglor says again.
"Káno," Maedhros says, very gently. He tilts Maglor's chin up to examine his face. "What troubles you?"
But how can Maglor tell him, I am not now the child you knew in Valinor, the little magpie who so loved to be adorned? How can he say, I too was sated with a crown? He cannot unburden himself to Maedhros, who so depends on him to be merry and bright and unruffled. He has lost the right to do so.
"It will get in the way," he says, "when I play my harp." Then he summons up a smile and says, cheerfully, "Five cousins yet to choose gifts for, and then you promised you would let me practice my new Sindarin songs after we dine! We had better hurry." And he turns back to the chest before Maedhros can object.
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