#archi screaming

[curufiin]

Hear Me Out.

So we all know Jirt has a vendetta against me I headcanon Curufin as being a very meticulous gift giver. He likes to give meaningful gifts, something someone may not expect or even appreciate in the moment, but years down the line they fully realize just how much thought he’s put into said gift. While this makes Curvo a favorite for receiving gifts from, this also means he has several weeks a year dedicated to agonizing over what kind of gift he should give. He can’t do the same thing twice. It has to be unique, it has to be thoughtful, and the birthday person needs to LOVE IT OR ELSE.

Well, Maglor’s birthday happens to be coming up.

Curufin, of course, knows that everybody and their dog is going to give Maglor either instruments, or something related to music. And of course, why not? He’s not Macalaurë for no reason. But this gets heavily in the way of new gifts. He can’t just make a new harp and call it a day, and he’s also made replacement strings for Maglor’s instruments already. He’s no good at composing, jewelry seems too impersonal, and he’s just realized that he really doesn’t know what Maglor actually likes.

Thus, Curufin starts freaking out.

Like hell he’s going to tell his brother, “hey. I don’t actually know what you like that isn’t music. Please tell me what to get you.” That would be like public humiliation. Instead, he continues to freak out for the next two days, until he gets an idea— an extremely stupid idea, but it’s the only one he has, so he gets to work. It combines his love for metals with Maglor’s love for music, gingerly set in an intricately carved wooden box. The song is just as carefully chosen: not a song that Maglor has composed, but the one which inspired him to pick up composing in the first place.

And as he makes sure the wind up mechanism works propery, he admires his creation: music in a box. Curufin can’t say he’s entirely happy with it, or that he’s even sure Maglor would like it beyond a need to be polite, but he has a reputation to keep up.

Thankfully, the birthday passes as soon as it arrived, and Maglor seemed pleased (and possibly even entranced) by the music that he had stuffed in a box. Curufin benefits most from this, of course: he could just stamp down new songs, make bigger and grander boxes with longer combs for more notes, and bam, brand new birthday present.

TLDR: Curufin invented the music box because he was out of ideas for birthday gifts for Maglor.