Content warning: You know, I always prefer one content-warning too much rather than one too less (and it is entirely possible, that this is ridiculous, because that oneshot isn't at all emotional, but I proofread it way to often to be able to tell), but this is really important to me: This piece describes – in full detail and as emotionally, as I can manage – the feeling of having a deeply rooted hate towards your own body or parts of your body (I'm trying to describe a body dysmorphia, that's what I'm doing). I used Maedhros' scars as a source of this feeling, yet I personally have nothing against scars and I don't find them unattractive or anything.

If you read this and realize, you identify with it: Get help. Please.

Second thing is, that everything that regards the body and/or mental illness is potentially difficult , so if you know, you are sensitive with that issue or if you struggle with similar problems, skip this or read it carefully (also, feel free to text me, if there is anything you think I should know or would be interested in).

Like an animal hit by one of Celegorm's arrows, Maedhros flinched. His whole fea screamed to hide, to get out of sight, to let himself fall onto his bed and wrap the blanket around himself like a second skin. It were only gritted teeth and the last drop of pride that was left to him, which prevented such ridiculousness.

"You are not going to believe, what just happened," it was Finno storming into his room without knocking, that had set him on edge like that, so that now he stood in the middle of the room, shirtless and paralyzed from the realisation that there wouldn't be any way to cover up. His mind was racing, his body frozen as if his blood had somehow turned into a flood of little lightnings – of the kind that at times accompanied the thunderstorms of Manwe – buzzing through his veins, replacing every conscious thought and movement with sheer panic and the feeling of the lines on his skin, not physically painful, but... there. Resonating, vibrating in his mind in an abhorrent discord he wanted to flinch away from, but couldn't, since the sound came from within his very fea.

There, there, there...

"You know, I like having your brothers here, but if there is one more occasion, where I see Celegorm and his dog..."

Desperately, he pierced Finno's eyes with his own gaze, willing him, forcing him not to look and see –

Scars

Scarred

Scars

Even the sound of the word - the bass in the orchestra of those feelings, ever present, ever directing the discord – caused him pain. And pain it was. Not of the hroa, but of the fea.

Sometimes, when his shirt wasn't tight enough he felt them on his skin. Or sometimes, even worse, when his shirt was too tight, he felt them pressing through the fabric – visible for everyone to look and see...

They were on his mind constantly, this abhorrent part of himself, being there, there, there...throbbing in his fea, as if they were still wounds hurting his hroa.

Sometimes, when he accidentally touched them, or touched something with a scarred limb, pain exploded in his fea, the way it did in his hroa when he hit his shin.

And always he wanted to cringe. Wanted to curl up, tear out his hair, hammer his head against something, break down and burst into tears, scream to Manwe and Varda – to Morgoth, if necessary – only to make it stop!

There, there, there!

Go away! Leave me!

There, there, there!

please...

What he would do – what he wouldn't do – for the possibility of abandoning this body, abandoning those scars and – hopefully – those thoughts with them. Not to feel them being there, there, there, anymore. To be free!

He even yearned for the pain and the visions, Sauron had inflicted on him, where he had felt light and beautiful and unmarked.

Maitimo.

Don't look at me.

Maitimo.

You wouldn't say that, if you looked, if you saw...

Maitimo

Go away! Please! Go away!

He wanted to scrape them off, but was to disgusted by himself to touch them.

Not that he hadn't tried. He had tried to look at himself in the mirror – not only sadness, but an overwhelming sense of desperation, grief even, for an unmarked body, an unbroken soul, a fea, that wasn't in constant pain. Now, he simply shunned mirrors like the plague, reduced the time he had to spend shirtless to mere seconds and refused to look down himself. Sometimes, this eased this pain of the fea, but he had fought it for too long to believe that this was a wound that would ever begin to heal. 

"Are you okay?"

Please!

His muscles tensed to the point where it physically hurt. He wanted to give in to the overwhelming urge to curl up on the floor.

This is just Finno, he had to remind himself, pushing against the discord with his trust. Finno, who might look, but wouldn't see. The one person in this world he might be able to learn to trust so far as to let him close enough. The one person who, looking, wouldn't increase the pain in his fea.

Ugly.

It had a voice. The voice of burning red eyes and flaming orange hair and nails sharp as claws.

Abhorrent.

Scarred.

"Hey," Finno came closer and it took Maedhros all his strength of will and body, not to step back. Lightnings of pain curled under his skin. An orchestra of discord screaming in his mind.

There!

Scarred!

There!

"You look beautiful."

He gave in. Fell into Finno's open arms and cried in his shoulder.

Cried for his unmarked body, for his unbroken soul, for his fea that hadn't been in constant pain – all the while listening to his scars resonating in the back of his mind. Always. Never silent.

There. There. There.

This was both kind of intense and also extremely interesting to write. 

To me, there is something ultimately strong and disturbing about the phrase "He wanted to scrape them off but was too disgusted to touch them" and I really like the "voice of burning red eyes and flaming orange hair".

And it is infinitely mean, that his mothername Maitimo means Well-shaped-one (i mean, it is amazing, because we can canonically call him hot ginger princess, which is both fun and accurate, but in that context it is just awful.

Also, sorry, that I didn't put those two little dots above the e in fea and the o in hroa. Word wouldn't let me.

I hope, you have a nice day/night/whatever and that you  love yourself.