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Ting!
On the bench, just to the right of Maedhros there stood a very small crab: bright red and insatiably curious. In his oversized front claw, the tiny creature held a spoon.
Ting… ting… ting!
“If you beat that teacup any harder it will crack,” Maedhros warned, turning back to the salad he was chopping with great care. Beside him silence fell. When, suspicious, he turned to check that the bold crustacean had not found its way into worse mischief a pair of beady eye-stalks met his gaze challengingly.
“All I’m saying is that Ammë’s china is perhaps not the best vehicle for your compositions. Choose something less breakable.”
Maglor had his tiny tin drum, of course, and the glowing crystal chimes that Fëanor had made: the result of a spectacular burst of inspiration that had caused their father to (thankfully only temporarily) misplace Maglor amid Tirion’s bustle last winter (Maedhros had not allowed him to take Maglor on further excursions without a responsible adult present since). Both were fine instruments, wrought in exquisite miniature detail, but a great musician required more stock with which to work. Maglor took matters into his own hands (or pincers, rather).
Eye-stalks bending toward the tools with which Maedhros worked, Maglor dodged suddenly around the stump of his missing right hand and darted across the bench.
“You know you aren’t allowed knives!—oh.”
Tong!
The copper bowl (already partially filled with leafy greens) rang for quite some time after it was struck with the spoon. The little crab looked quite satisfied. Already feeling his temples begin to throb, Maedhros quietly dreaded the headache this development in instrumental design would inevitably bring.
“That is more acceptable,” Maedhros grudgingly declared, all the while thinking that it really was not.
Tong!
Dumping a handful of unevenly cut tomato wedges among the greenery (beastly things to cut one handed!), Maedhros picked out a tender rocket leaf and offered it to his brother. Maglor promptly dropped the spoon and began nibbling eagerly, all percussion related activities forgotten…for now.
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When Fingon arrived the following afternoon he almost tripped over the assortment of seemingly disparate items Maglor had dragged onto the parlour room carpet. The little crab’s feet scuttled effortfully through the soft pile as he attempted to push a little wooden box toward his collection. Fingon graciously lifted the ornately carved container (it looked as if it had once held salt) with thumb and forefinger and deposited it alongside the rest. There were a bell, a cup (pewter, not china), several sticks of various lengths and an impressive number of lids, all of different shapes. When Maglor waved his large claw, Fingon was not sure if it was in greeting or consternation.
“Ready, Russandol?”
“Almost,” Maedhros called out, striding out from the corridor still fiddling with the buckles on his prosthetic. “Here, give me a hand, would you?”
“I’m rather better at taking them,” Fingon answered with a grin.
Maedhros rolled his eyes. “That jest is becoming a little worn, don’t you think?”
“No, but your hand is.” Maedhros was indeed wearing it, and groaning.
Tap-tap. Ting!
At least Maglor thought Fingon funny.
“Are you coming?” he asked the little crustacean, who clicked a few times, shuffled his feet side to side and began to bang on one of the lids in answer.
“He is indisposed today, I am afraid,” Maedhros translated. “Inspiration has taken him of a sudden and he must compose, lest the overly elvish sentiments swell so greatly as to crack his carapace from within.”
“I see.” Fingon sometimes wondered who was the more dramatic of the two. Surely a few clicks and shuffles could not convey all that. “And who will mind him if we are not?”
“Caranthir,” answered Maedhros, and aiming a meaningful look at his cousin added, “he, unlike some, is not so sentimental as to allow to Maglor to nap on my bed.”
Fingon had almost forfeited his baby-sitting privileges over that incident. Crabs love to burrow, and Maglor was no exception. Unfortunately, while Fingon was busy perusing a tome on unique Middle-earthen critters and their keeping, left casually on the bedside table, he had chosen to burrow inside the slipcase covering Maedhros’s pillow. It was an old case, fraying a little at the seams and, as such, Maglor’s running legs had become awfully tangled among loose threads inside. It had taken them ages to free him without damaging the delicate appendages.
“How many times must I tell you I feel awful before you cease to harass me?” Fingon sighed.
Maedhros grinned, bumping their shoulders together playfully. “At least once more. He sulked for weeks you know!”
Maglor did not see them go. He was already too intent on his work to heed the cheerful farewell Maedhros called as Fingon pushed him out the door.
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Click click click click…
Ninety-six chitinous feet scurried over the wooden threshold, marching in scraggly lines behind Celegorm’s soft-soled hunting boots.
Maedhros raised one eyebrow. “Brought home half of Alqualondë’s ecosystem, have you?”
Celegorm ignored his sarcasm. “Where has Maglor gotten to? He isn’t in his pond.”
“In the parlour. A new project has stolen his attention this past week.” The project was unfortunately noisy, and ate into the hours Maglor customarily spent with Maedhros.
“Why the entourage?” asked Curufin as Celegorm approached, trailing a dozen sand fiddlers behind him. He was bent over a tiny raised platform in one corner, holding a thin twist of wire in one hand and a set of jewellery pliers in the other.
“Our littlest brother needs to be among his own kind.” Celegorm took a certain satisfaction in teasing Maglor about his diminished stature, having endured a good deal of taunting from his next oldest brother as a child.
“He already is among his kind!” exclaimed Maedhros, lifting Maglor protectively before he could be swamped by the chittering tide. Elves were his kind. It was their duty to help Maglor remember that.
Maglor seemed to think otherwise. Agitated, he shuffled in Maedhros’s palm and tried to nip his fingers.
“He needs enrichment,” observed Curufin, “which is the point of his entire exercise.” He gestured at the collection of miscellany which had been arranged artfully on the platform like the percussion section of a miniature orchestra. Some pieces stood alone. Others had been wired carefully in place to hang like tiny gongs. “I dare say he will enjoy sharing his craft. We are too large to participate, after all.”
“Do they even know what music is?” Maedhros was sceptical. He had never seen a crab other than Maglor attempt rhythm, nor melody, and could not imagine a whole band of them doing so in a coordinated fashion.
“Crabs are smart,” Celegorm declared. He spoke their language, and Maedhros did not (and Maedhros therefore had no grounds to argue). Placed gently upon the ground, Maglor immediately skittered toward the newcomers, clicking away with his pincers. At least, being bright red with their family star so clearly emblazoned upon his back, he would not be difficult to identify.
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Fingon lay stretched on the parlour floor with his toes scrunched in the carpet eyeing one of the sand fiddlers intensely.
“I had not figured you for a naturalist,” Maedhros commented from his perch on the settee.
“You must admit their behaviour is fascinating.”
Maedhros thought it rather more exhausting than enthralling. Minding one energetic crustacean was enough of a task, but keeping an entire consortium out of trouble was downright onerous. A collection of thirteen crabs, it turned out, was primed for chaos. “Yes, most mesmerising anarchy,” he said.
Several of the larger males attempted to impress Fingon with a claw-waving display. Two locked pincers in a strange sort of joust a few inches from Maedhros’s toes. One attempted to burrow through the wooden floor and found it unyielding. Another had discovered that the crumpled folds of Fingon’s tunic yielded satisfactorily. Amid this flurry of activity one star-backed, red-shelled crab scuttled around, desperately attempting to corral his fellows.
“Have you considered strings?” Fingon asked him, indicating the claw-wavers. “These fellows might do well with viols or the like.”
The little crab rapidly beat his shelled feet in what was most definitely consternation.
“Very well, I shall leave the creative decisions to you.”
On the whole Maglor appeared to be enjoying his new-found social life, even if he was forced to vie among the others for burrowing space in his now crowded pond. Maedhros grudgingly had to admit that Celegorm had been right: Maglor seemed happier. The sole exception to this was in music-making. Each day, with Maglor at the head, the consortium scuttled from his pond to the house and marched into the parlour (Fingon now jestingly referred to the green space between the pond and back entrance as Maglor’s gap, for they travelled in orderly lines under his direction like soldiers marching to battle. It was un-crablike, and most unsettling). Then Maglor, with varying degrees of success, would attempt to organise a percussion ensemble. His shelled compatriots were more inclined to wander. Crabs were still crabs, after all, and while surprisingly proficient in the art of rhythm, their survivalist minds saw little point to the coordinated beating of objects that did nought to achieve this purpose.
“You’re fighting a losing battle, I’m afraid,” Maedhros informed them both. He plucked a crab from his right arm where it had been picking at the raw edges of his prosthetic’s leather straps.
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Twang…
Maedhros lay atop his bed with eyes closed against the dull pressure behind his eyes. Beside him, safely ensconced in a fortress of cushions (with carefully chosen covers) a tiny crab plucked at the lap harp that Fingon had left behind. He spent less time with the other crabs these days, having decided, ultimately, that their company was dull.
Twang, twang. Clack-clack, click.
“I told Fingon it needed tuning.”
A few hopeful clicks issued from the little enclosure.
“No. I do not think my ears could withstand such an acoustic assault under present conditions, unfortunately. I shall ask Curufin later.”
There came a weighty silence. Upon opening one eye, Maedhros found Maglor wobbling his mouth parts so that they bubbled: a gesture he had come to recognise as equivalent to a resigned sigh.
“I am sorry,” he said, reaching out his hand to the tiny creature. “When this wretched ache eases I shall sing to your accompaniment. But you must promise not to use Ammë’s salad bowl as a gong.”
The little crab seemed to consider this carefully, shuffling fractionally side to side as he did so. At length he scuttled up Maedhros’s arm and nestled on his chest. When Maedhros reached up to stroke his carapace gently with one finger, Maglor began to affectionately pet his hand with his large claw.
“I love you,” Maedhros told him. With both eyes closed once more he thought he heard the words returned to him whispered in Maglor’s deep, melodic voice, but when he looked there was only a little crab dozing contentedly on his chest.