Noldor Hair Headcanons (3/4)
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | On AO3
Some lighter Kidnap Fam content, after the downhill freefall that was the last chapter. With a dash of Finrod in Valinor.
Elrond and Elros have never had their hair braided when they end up with Maedhros and Maglor.
They don’t realize what they’re asking when Elros grabs a hairbrush and puts it in Maglor’s hand.
Maglor understands that, but decides that the twins need parental care, even though he has no right. He brushes their hair and leaves it loose at first.
But the twins have watched Maglor braid Maedhros’s hair and they soon start asking for more interesting hairstyles.
Eventually Maglor explains to them that it can only be done by family.
The twins have a whole silent conversation.
“What does it take to be family?” Elros asks eventually.
Well, braiding an unrelated child’s hair is pretty close to informal adoption.
Elros forces the brush into Maglor’s hand again.
Maglor stares.
Elrond shakes his head and runs out.
Of course, Elrond must hate them. He has every right. Sure, Elros has started to warm up to them, but that’s just because he’s affection-starved, probably. They’re still kidnappers.
Maglor is about to put down the brush and try to refuse when Elrond comes back.
He’s holding a second hairbrush.
He hands it to Maedhros expectantly.
Maedhros cries.
Maglor cries.
The twins’ hair really doesn’t hold braids very well, and they’re still kids who run around and play, but damn them if Maglor and Maedhros aren’t going to do their best.
Now all of their people can see that the twins are well-loved.
Maedhros and Maglor also proudly sport a few clumsy, wonky braids each.
They’re less wonky with time, and eventually the twins are doing their fathers’ (kidnappers’) hair as often as not.
Finrod is reembodied shortly before Eärendil and Elwing gets to Valinor. It’s too early and he’s Not Doing Well. While in Middle Earth, he was the one who let basically every one of his friends braid his hair, now he can’t stand the thought of someone touching him that way.
But Beleriandic battle braids feel wrong in Tirion. And he’s desperately trying to reckon with his trauma, with Sauron defeating him by singing about the kinslaying, so he can’t leave his hair loose like the Teleri.
And he can’t quite get the sight of Edrahil’s bloody braids spat out by a werewolf out of his head.
He wears nothing but the very strange-looking (to Amanyar) Mourning Braids he designed after Dagor Bragollach for a couple of years.
Then after an episode of really bad depression and nearly fading, he cuts his hair short.
No-braiding-possible kind of short.
While not unheard of in Beleriand (sometimes former thralls keep their hair very short, like Rog), it’s unthinkable in Valinor, especially for the Crown Prince of the Noldor.
He is stared at a lot, his reputation goes down the drain, but to Finrod it’s liberating.
He does let his hair grow out again eventually, but only when other Exiles start coming back and choose to keep the Beleriandic braid styles, and it becomes a fashion statement rather than a mark of shame.
Finarfin is Very Shocked arriving in Beleriand when he finds his (single remaining) child with her hair loose and everyone else with weird self-braided battle hairstyles.
After a battle or three where he ends up with his hair matted with blood and mud, he caves and gets Galadriel to give him battle braids.
By the end of the war he’s even learned to do them himself! Let it not be said that King Arafinwë Ñoldóran didn’t rise to his calling.
The night before sending the Elrond and Elros to Gil-galad, Maedhros and Maglor undo all of their braids. Everyone cries.
Maedhros and Maglor meant this to minimize the ‘taint’ their names would put on the twins, by making it look like they were still hostages to the end, but the twins stop on the way to do each other’s hair because one does not meet a king with their hair loose, they have manners (which the Fëanorians taught them, so they’re Very Specific Manners), so the effect is lost. Gil-galad has Questions. The twins refuse to lie.
Then, before going to steal the Silmarils, Maedhros and Maglor do each other’s hair, in a style of their father’s that they haven’t worn since the Oath.
Maglor braids a single golden ribbon into Maedhros’s hair.
They have very few pieces of hair jewellery left of their brothers’, but they use all of them.
They both know it’s the last time.
To be continued
I did some sketches for visual reference of a few of the hairstyles mentioned here, if you want to see what I'm imagining!
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