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Elinel made her way up the rocky side of Himring Hill, towards the bony stream that marked the edge of her patrol. She paused briefly to examine some fallen rock, determined it was the result of a slide further up the hill, and continued on. As she went, a light rain started, and she tugged her grey hood up over her hair. She generally didn’t wear it otherwise; it wasn’t as though her bark-brown hair, uncovered, would catch the eye of distant scouts, unlike certain lords she could mention, and she enjoyed the feel of the breeze past her ears. But now she tucked back into her hood and lowered her eyes to the ground; the footing grew more precarious closer to the creek, and Himring Hill had a propensity for letting its shoulders slump – out of weariness, or spite – and sending loose scree tumbling beneath the feet of inattentive walkers. 
Just now, though, Elinel was more interested in the sounds reaching her ears than the relatively solid rock beneath her feet. She could hear the rushing laugh of the stream – high, at this time of year – and the smoother notes of the small eddy she knew lay in this section of stream. As ever, the sound reminded her of the stories her mother would tell her as a child, of the sound of the sea… “Like the great breaths of a sleeping giant, my little one, and the lapping of waves up the river like leaves falling; like hands clapping.” Her mother, dead these long years, thrown by her horse on a routine patrol. Lord Maglor himself had brought her the news, and her mother’s helmet, and had sung the death song at her pyre. They had always been kind to her, the Fëanorian Lords, for all there was salt water, way back, in Elinel’s veins. “Loving and following a man of the Noldor was my choice,” her mother had told her, “I left the seashore long ago. The tide has come in many thousands of times at Alqualondë, now, and the sands are clean. I do not have the right to so long or so bitter a memory.”
Distracted by her reminiscence, Elinel initially missed the sound mingling with the burble of running water – a distinctly out of place sound, and one that made her first freeze, and then grit her teeth, annoyed. Someone was whistling, an off-key bastardization of one of Lord Maglor’s lovelier tunes.
“How many times,” she muttered to herself, quickening her pace as she sped towards the stream, “How many times do I have to remind that damned fool he is a soldier, and a scout, and both nose-picking and warbling are activities our captain will not abide on watch…” Her irritation rising – did he want to call an orc patrol down on their heads? – she rounded the corner, intending to seize her counterpart by the shoulders and shake him until his walnut brain rattled in his skull. “I don’t care that you consider this the most boring patrol; still your idiot tongue! None should make less noise than a scout of Himring.”
A dozen invectives on the tip of her tongue, Elinel descended on the creek. “You bloody fool, what do you think you’re doing, whistling like a lass coming from her first tumbling? And if Lord Maglor heard how you’re butchering his composition, he’d–”
She drew up short, her boots slipping on the rocks. The tall figure sitting by the creek looked up at her, an eyebrow quirked. He was far too tall to be her usual, stuffing-headed compatriot, far too tall to be any but one, in fact. Flaming hair tied back with a rough leather thong spilled down his back, and grey eyes glittered in a harsh, once-handsome face.
Lord Maedhros of Himring, whom she had once seen tear an orc’s head from its shoulders with his bare…hand, looked abashed, and stopped whistling.
“My lord,” she croaked, and clasped her hands behind her back, pulling herself up straight. The effect was somewhat ruined as she stepped on another loose rock, and wobbled embarrassingly. “I do apologize for intruding, and for speaking so out of turn. I thought you were someone else – Had I known you would be – Are you unaccompanied?” She looked around for his personal guard, her embarrassment mounting further. Had she been so lax as to miss the posting that their lord would be venturing out this day? Venturing out to…to… She frowned, trying to ascertain what exactly he was doing, other than looking slightly guilty.
“You won’t tell Maglor, will you?” That distinct, rough-hewn voice sounded sheepish, and that wasn’t right, either.
“Won’t tell him what, my lord?”
“He made me promise I would never attempt anything he’d written. ‘You can butcher the sergeants’ jodies, or soldiers’ drinking songs all you like, but the moment you start humming one of my compositions, I’ll take your other hand’.” Maedhros grimaced. “Bloodthirsty bastard, my brother.”
Elinel was lost. “What are you doing out here, my lord?”
“Other than being unable to carry a tune in a very large bucket?”
Elinel’s eyes found the other piece of incongruity in the scene at this; namely, as it turned out, the very large bucket between Maedhros’ legs. And the board, propped up in it, braced against his right arm. He’d rolled up his breeches, his large bare feet planted in the stream, and in his left hand, he was holding what looked like a sopping wet, wadded up tunic. A washboard at his knee…
Elinel realized she was gaping, and closed her mouth quickly. Then she opened it again. “Are you doing laundry? Uh, I mean, are you doing laundry, sir?”
Maedhros grinned. It pulled the scars on his face into an alarming contortion, and Elinel had to stop herself from taking a step back. “Never took me for a washerwoman, eh?”
“No, sir.”
“Tell me, soldier – what do you do in your free time?”
“Sir?”
Maedhros waved his left hand impatiently, sending water droplets flying from the wet tunic still held in it. “Hobbies, pastimes – activities that aren’t your duties to your commanding officer.”
“Uh. “ Elinel dragged her fascinated gaze away from the soapsuds that had landed on the end of Maedhros’ famed, Finwian nose, and tried to think. “I read some, sir. I like the hunt. I sometimes take a run on the battlements, to clear my head.”
Maedhros rubbed at his nose with the back of his arm. “Ah, you sound like my cousin.”
“Which cousin would that be, sir?” Elinel asked curiously, unable to help herself.
“Oh, you know, the one over in Hithlum. Strong chap, wears gold in his hair, terrible sense of impulse control…I think he’s a political figure of some sort.” There was a glint in Maedhros’ eyes, and at first Elinel was confused, mistaking it for the mad gleam Maedhros’ soldiers knew so well from the first charge of battle – but then she realized it was amusement. Is he teasing me?
“The High King, you mean.”
“Aye, that’s the one. I think he does do some ruling, on alternate Mondays.” Maedhros bent back over his washboard. “But he likes a nice jog around the battlements, too.”
Elinel tried to imagine the High King, whom she’d only seen at a distance – a brilliant figure in silver and blue, his heavy black braids shining with gold, leading a column of archers from the back of a powerful steed – taking a light jog around Barad Eithel, perhaps with his hair tied back in a tail, wearing the loose, cut-off trousers Elinel herself preferred for running. No, I’ve never had that good of an imagination.
“At any rate, we all need our escapes, don’t we? You and Fingon run around like hares, my brother tries to harmonize with the moon, and I…” Maedhros shook a loose strand of hair out of his eyes. “…I sometimes quite enjoy doing my own washing.”
“You really know how to enjoy yourself, don’t you, my lord?” said Elinel, before she could stop herself.
Maedhros chuckled and Elinel winced. It was a rough, gravelly sound, and put her in mind of the only other time she had heard her lord laugh – in battle, soaked with blood, a sword nigh as long as she was in his left hand, and so fearsome that she had briefly found herself more afraid of him than of the gathering ranks of orcs. But now, Maedhros was distinctly…merry?
“There is nothing, solider, like a mundane task for clearing the mind and soothing the soul,” he said. “It was many years I went never knowing how to wash my own clothes – a handicap of being a prince, you know. But there was a time, when there were those around me who thought it would be…helpful…if I could set myself to a task. A task that took no small amount of sweat and effort, but that would leave me with clear evidence of accomplishment: before, dirty clothes. Add a little soap, and water, and lemon for the scent, and after…clean clothes. How neat; how satisfying. It was supposed to be an exercise I undertook only for as long as I needed, but I grew to like it, and so,” he shrugged his broad, crooked shoulders, “my most ignoble pastime.”
“Huh.” Elinel chewed her lip, interested. “My brother, after his first battle, came back with a limp and an…unsettled mind. The healer told us he was whole and hale enough, but that we should try setting him something mindless and repetitive to do, when the shakes took him. They set him up in the kitchen, peeling potatoes, and do you know, nothing stilled his hands like a paring knife and pile of tubers. He still does it, sometimes, though the shakes and sweats don’t come near so often, and the cooks love him for it.”
Maedhros nodded thoughtfully. “Funny, what habits the mind forms. Or the hand.” He flexed the fingers of his left hand, letting the tunic drop to the smooth rock beside him. “But I do believe I’ve distracted you enough from your patrol.” It was a self-deprecating comment, but Elinel took it for the hint that it was. She drew herself up hastily, embarrassed that she’d neglected her duties this long.
“Yes, my lord!” She bobbed her head, her hood slipping free, and realized she’d been distracted enough not to notice when it had stopped raining. “I should carry on with my patrol. Uh. Good luck with the washing.”
“My thanks,” said Maedhros graciously, though his eyes were alight with that glint again, that Elinel now recognized for amusement. How often have we thought him fierce, or angry, when really he’s just holding back a laugh?
“Oh, and Elinel,” called Maedhros, as she turned, and she started, shocked that he’d known her name all this time. He gave a lopsided grin, and winked. “I was serious. Don’t tell Maglor about me assaulting his song, or I’ll have to gut you.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Elinel, gravely, and as she set off along the creek, she heard the off-key whistle start up again.