there's no rhyme or reason

Frodo had been intrigued by the elf since he first saw a glimpse of his injury; a thin sliver of greyish flesh spotted between the the cuff of a sleeve and the trimming of a glove. Illness was rare among the elves, and it had begun to make a small loneliness in Frodo’s heart that grew as Bilbo went from old to ancient and he himself was getting on in years. Master Elrond was a healer of great skill, nor was he the only one eager to see to the comfort and health of the hobbits; still he could not halt the march of time. Frodo felt that it pained the elves to witness the slow failing of their mortal bodies. More than once he had seen their neighbours flinch or quickly avert their eyes when Bilbo struggled to rise from the bench outside his home, or when an indrawn breath gave away a sudden pain in his joints. Frodo felt reminded of an old yellow tomcat who had liked to sleep on the warm cobblestones by the well outside Bag End, and the way he had flinched to see him limp away in the evening as his days drew near their end.

The elf with the injured hand drew similar looks of mingled pity and distaste, though Frodo had been made to understand that he had earned the latter. He found it difficult to picture soft-spoken, withdrawn Maglor either as a joyful minstrel or a ruthless warrior; rather he felt as though an invisible hand had plucked kin strings in their souls, and loneliness sung in both of them.

One afternoon, Master Daeron’s beautiful harp had been carried out to the shore by no fewer than four strong elves, and the hobbits had spent a delightful time listening and singing until Bilbo’s rhymes reduced most of the audience to tears of laughter. Frodo’s smile had grown somewhat fixed when he found he was no longer certain that the merriment stemmed from his uncle’s cleverness, rather than the jolly nonsense of his wandering mind. Frodo’s gaze lingered on Maglor, who had not laughed along with the others.

“Does it hurt still?” he found himself asking. Maglor did not turn his eyes on him, but his burned hand twitched inside its glove.

“The hurt is less a thing of the body and more an ache of the soul” he said softly.

Frodo nodded. “I’ve some of those hurts myself.”

“I miss my harp” Maglor confided, his eyes still fixed straight ahead as though he were speaking to himself. “That is perhaps the greatest hurt of all.” There was a silence. Frodo knew no comfort to give the elf.

“Pimpinella Bracegirdle”, said Bilbo beside him, stirring from a brief rest against his shoulder, “loved to dance.” He fixed his watery old eyes on Maglor with an intensity that finally forced the elf to turn his head and acknowledge him. Bilbo manoeuvred himself upright with a huff and a puff and wet his lips, ready to spin yet another yarn.

“Now the trouble was”, he continued, “her dear Hugo was lame in one leg whenever the weather was about to change, an old injury from when he was a lad … I seem to recall he’d stepped on a bee and rolled down the hill up near Sandson’s farm …”

Frodo felt a slow flush creeping up his neck and put a gentle hand on his uncle’s arm, hoping to dissuade him from his tale. Bilbo, however, was undeterred. Maglor simply looked at the old hobbit, his face betraying neither amusement nor disdain. He listened with the careful attention of a minstrel.

“Now, a little further down Bagshot Row lived a hobbit who didn’t care much for dancing, despite having two good feet at the end of two good legs. We called him Daddy Twofeet, if you can believe it, for he’d more sense in his toes than that foolish head of his, heh. So on every other feast day, if the weather was about to change, and Pimpinella wanted to dance, Hugo would limp over to Daddy’s hole, and borrow his good right leg, on the condition of course he’d have it back by morning. And then he and Pimpinella would dance the night away, and they didn’t care who knew about it.” The old hobbit finished with a snort and a shake of his grey head.

“Oh Bilbo”, Frodo sighed. 

His uncle bristled. “Don’t you take that tone with me, young hobbit! Hugo and Daddy were my neighbours for many years, and every word is true.”

“Bilbo-”, Frodo began, but the old hobbit shook his hand from his arm.

“Why, I ought to send you to bed without your supper!” he sputtered, now truly querulous in a way only the elderly can muster.

“To bed, yes”, Frodo agreed wearily, and made to rise. “Perhaps it is time for bed.”

“Perhaps you ought to listen to your uncle, Master Baggins.”

All three of them stopped and looked up to where Daeron was watching them, a twinkle of merriment in his bright eyes.

“I think there is some wisdom in his tale”, he went on, and raised a graceful hand in beckoning. Beside the hobbits, Maglor stiffened where he sat, not unlike a rabbit hoping to elude the hunter’s searching gaze.

“Come, Maglor. Sit with me.” Daeron’s voice was gentle, yet brooked no argument. Maglor rose, but doing so cast a sideways glance at Frodo, who could not help but feel he had done the elf a bad turn.

“Show me”, Daeron said as Maglor settled himself on the smooth rock next to him. He opened his hand in invitation, and received Maglor’s own in return. None around them spoke or even shifted as Daeron gently peeled the glove away, a shadow of pain passing over his features at the sight of the marred flesh.

“The skin has hardened”, Maglor said in a voice barely above a whisper, forcing the words out quickly as though they hurt him. “The fingers are too stiff to play.”

Daeron hummed a soft note of agreement, turning the hand over and gently extending the scarred digits. “Yes”, he said at last, “that hand is hardly fit to pluck my harp.”

His finger’s tightened around Maglor’s wrist to prevent him from drawing away. Daeron removed from his shoulders his own lovely blue scarf, and, resting Maglor’s hand in his lap, gently pulled the soft fabric over it.

“Between the two of us we have three good hands to play.”

The tune was halting and strange at first. Taking half of two famed minstrels did not, Frodo thought to himself, make a whole one of outstanding skill. Yet there was not a face in the audience that did not smile, or shed a tear, or both.