Chapter Text
- There isn’t anyone left who knows how to do Maglor’s Mourning Braids, but they are described in a lament for Fingon that’s still doing the rounds, so Elrond and Elros make their best try. That style is henceforth known as Elrond’s Mourning Braids (because Elros gets forgotten by the elves a lot after he dies, let’s not lie to ourselves).
- A decade of nothing but Mourning Braids really hammers in that Elrond and Elros weren’t just hostages.
- It doesn’t do a lot for their reputation, but they don’t particularly care.
- Bit by bit, Elros adopts mannish customs after making his Choice, and even goes so far as to cut his hair above the shoulder. Elrond is pre-grieving his brother too much to be properly shocked about this.
- (It’s still long enough to braid. It’s fine. It’s not like his brother is leaving him on purpose. Or rejecting him. Elrond knows that.)
- Everyone thinks Elrond should wear his hair in the Sindarin custom but he refuses to give up his Noldor braids. Elros braids his brother’s hair until he leaves for Númenor.
- Elrond and Gil-galad do each other’s hair through the Second Age. Because they’re the last of their family and the only ones to keep to the old traditions. Not at all because they’re close. Of course not. Wouldn’t be proper. (They spend two hours at it every morning alone in Gil-galad’s chambers.)
- Elrond revives his Mourning Braids on his 500th birthday.
- Celebrimbor learns about dwarven hair culture. It’s Very Different but kind of similar, in that fancy hairstyles are a status thing. (Or really, long hair/beard is a status thing and then you have to do something with it because otherwise it catches everywhere.)
- Narvi isn’t in fact the first dwarf to touch elven hair, but that’s only because Finrod had a very extended concept of family.
- Annatar magically braids his own hair, when he even bothers (his hair doesn’t even singe in the forge if it falls into the fire). This hurts Celebrimbor’s sensitivities, but he adapts to Annatar’s ways, and adapts again, and adapts, until he really can’t.
- Sauron cuts off Celebrimbor’s beautiful dark braids full of dwarven beads and ties them to the spears of his personal guard. Elrond never quite manages to get that image out of his head.
- At war again, Gil-Galad invents locs. Well, re-invents them really, because Silvan elves have worn them forever, but he’s the first Noldor to do it. (He has Fingon’s hair texture. Does that mean he’s Fingon’s son? Who knows. He’s not telling.)
- It’s only after Gil-galad’s death that Elrond teaches himself how to braid his own hair.
- He hates it.
- But he won’t wear his hair loose.
- (The first style he masters is Maglor’s Mourning Braids.) (It really shouldn’t be because it’s Intricate but Elrond is nothing if not stubborn.)
- Imladris has a full salon, like the Noldor palaces of old.
- It doesn’t get that much use, to be honest.
- Erestor learns to braid really tiny braids into Glorfindel’s hair, so that he never wears his hair fully loose but it still looks like it’s loose. Everyone else thinks it’s ridiculous. Glorfindel thinks it’s the best thing. Elrond watches them with a knowing smile.
- Celebrían wears her hair half-loose in the Sindar style until she marries Elrond. It takes him several years to find the strength to ask her to do his hair, but she lets him do hers and he sneaks in more and more braids until they settle on a mixed-style. When he finally allows her to do his hair, Celebrían makes her mother grumpily teach her proper Noldor braids.
- Elladan and Elrohir only wear practical Sindarin braids for the day to day, but they delight in doing each other’s hair in complicated styles for feasts and ceremonies. Elrond cries the first time they accidentally replicate Maglor’s favourite hairstyle.
- Arwen is a little gremlin who squirms out of her parents’ lap when they try to braid her hair. She’s also inherited even more of Melian’s hair than Elrond, so even when they manage to do a braid, it’s gone in a few hours.
- It takes years after Celebrían sails, because they’re all grieving, but eventually Elrohir offers to do his father’s hair, and Elrond lets him. They don’t do it every day, but it’s a large step in their recovery process.
- By the way, Thranduil’s thing for flower/leaf crowns isn’t a Sindar or Silvan practice, it’s just that he wanted to be Fancy but Not In a Noldor Way, thank you very much. He’s also very vain. His servants do his hair.
- Little Estel is very cute, has very silky hair for a man, even of his line, and makes a great doll for the twins to play with. He likes his hair touched A Lot.
- Arwen learns about that early on. She’s a very good silver smith. Aragorn now owns a lot of hair jewellery. He can’t make a braid to save his life, but that’s fine, because Arwen can’t wear them anyway.
- In the North, he wears his hair like Elros, cut above his shoulders. Once he becomes King, he lets it grow to his waist. He’s the first Man since Tuor to casually wear his hair in elaborate Noldor braids. He accidentally sets a fashion.
- Arwen also does Éowyn’s and Faramir’s hair regularly. The first time is for their wedding. Éowyn isn’t a fan of the unpractical Fëanorian styles, but the Nolofinwëan battle braids look incredibly good on her.
- Wandering on the coast for two ages, Maglor no longer does anything with his hair. It doesn’t enjoy the salt at all.
- When Elrond finally finds him, he almost has to cut it all off. Instead, he spends weeks carefully untangling and moisturising Maglor’s hair until he can finally braid it in the old style for him. Maglor cries.
- Elrond cries too. He cries even more when Maglor sits them down on the floor and braids his hair like he used to.
- They sail together with the other Ring bearers, and there’s a lot more crying when they find Celebrían, Gil-galad and Maedhros waiting for them together.
- Celebrían is wearing her hair in one of the Fëanorian styles that can be done one-handed.
- Galadriel isn’t entirely happy about that, but she sees Finrod and forgets about it.
- There’s some more crying.
- Fingon is also there (the amount of gold in his hair is a bit blinding, not that Elrond will ever tell him) and also wearing a one-handed braided style.
- There are some fights over who gets to do Elrond’s hair in the next few weeks.
- Celebrían wins most of them, because she’s inherited Galadriel’s viciousness, but she lets everyone have a turn.
- Elrond would like to know why he doesn’t have a say in it.
- (He does. They would never touch him if he didn’t want to. They’re just very happy to see him.)
- He does go to visit Elwing and Eärendil in their tower, and he goes with his hair down, because he’s a peace-maker at heart.
- But in Tirion, he always sports the most complex hairstyles, just barely coming short of overshadowing the High King’s (mostly because his hair is still too silky for it to hold well), because his family all want to outdo each other.
- He earns the reputation of being the most beloved of all the Noldor.
- It’s not wrong.