don't touch me

[lintamande]

Confirmation reaches them in the spring that Elwing of Sirion has the Silmaril.

It takes as long as the spring only because they weren't looking. They can stretch the oath that far, they can be disinterested in knowing - but now they know, and so there it is. Elwing of Sirion is twenty-three. Half-man, so fully grown. Sirion is a city of refugees. Elves and Men and, since there are Men, children. Elwing herself has infant children.

They debate whether to send messengers. Debating is allowed, even protracted debating. The Oath, these days, is loud in their minds, and louder when they're pushing it like this, but they drag out the debate for a few months. Messengers will probably be shot on sight. The last time Elwing of Sirion received news of the House of Fëanor it would have been the news that her brothers, twins, aged seven, had not survived the sack of Menegroth.

They send messengers anyway. The messengers are shot on sight. They have good armor, Fëanorian armor, and return home injured but not lethally. Maglor's songs no longer stitch them together. War makes you worse at healing. Maglor's songs are more powerful than ever - he can knock back a wave of approaching enemies, he can make a blade's next touch deadly, he can make them faster and more impervious to danger, but he can no longer do healing.

Maedhros, when he thinks about this, thinks that perhaps there needs to be part of you that is not broken for healing spells to draw on. Or perhaps the Enemy is amused to strip that away first. Perhaps the Enemy finds it suited to the theme as the Oath tugs and yanks and twists them into violence against the lands they once defended and the peoples they once sheltered.

They send messengers to Sirion again. The messengers deliver a plea for the Silmaril, an offer of anything at all in exchange. The messengers do not return at all.

The Enemy is many many hundreds of miles from here but at night Maedhros can hear him in his head. Is it so implausible that I really let you go? the Enemy likes saying. You serve me better free than you ever would have willingly.

The Oath allows them to work slowly. They begin planning the sack of the refugee camp even more slowly than the Oath allows, so slowly that its currents are constantly tugging at them. Any slower and the currents would erode all the things they care about which are not the Oath, and it would be a disaster to go to Sirion once they've been stripped of their capacity to care about anything that is not the Silmaril. So they do not hold out forever. But they work as slowly as they can.

Comments

[lintamande]

"You said Thorn had a consort, what does that entail?"

[imeanforever]

"She's the next highest ranking court member and considered trustworthy even under her orders, nobody but Thorn's allowed to touch her, Thorn touches her a lot. If you're asking if fairies have sex the answer is yes, it's just almost always at least vaguely horrible because of the background mastery thing."

[lintamande]

"Among my people what we are doing right now would be considered sexual. That is, obviously, vaguely horrible and so I try ignoring you entirely."

[imeanforever]

"Ah."

[lintamande]

"I am not -" his face twitches - "that particular kind of monster. I don't know how to avoid this situation, though."

[imeanforever]

"You're not being creepy about it," she says. "It's just a matter of how I work and the fact that there's no way to get fairy food."

[lintamande]

"I had noted that it didn't seem to cause you particular discomfort, more than me being around to perhaps decide to order you in general."

[imeanforever]

"I'm very practical."

[lintamande]

"I had noted that as well. I think I am reasonably practical as well but my practical solution in this case is to not look at you. Does it bother you?"

[imeanforever]

"I was curious, not offended."

[lintamande]

"Among mortals, when we had mortal neighbors, they had all kinds of rules about things to avoid lest you create the appearance of impropriety. The Eldar don't worry about that but don't do things like this either. And - if someone had sworn an Oath to obey another person for some unimaginable reason people'd probably make sure they weren't alone together."

[imeanforever]

"Vassalization is sort of the default social relationship among fairies," Promise sighs. "Nothing else is sustainable when the possibility's hanging over everybody's heads."

[lintamande]

"Fairies are horrifying."

[imeanforever]

"We're not all the same."

[lintamande]

"I'm sure there are lots of nice ones. The way you function is horrifying."

[imeanforever]

"I know."

[lintamande]

"If everyone weren't dead they'd be thinking how to fix it forever. But I can't think how Maglor and I could do it alone, not when the knowledge fairies exist has me mostly paralyzed with terror."

[imeanforever]

"I don't know how you could fix it but you could curb the worst of the abuse if you got the Queen. I used to think about that a lot."

[lintamande]

"How would that do it?"

[imeanforever]

"The Queen knows all the other fairies' names. - every kind of fairy has a kind magic, and by and large one-of-a-kinds have the strongest, and she's one of those." Food's gone.

[lintamande]

He stands. "It's a shame you don't have osanwë - if you had everyone's name and our range you could just fly through fairyland broadcasting 'your orders are revoked, no giving orders ever again'. See you tomorrow."

[imeanforever]

"See you."

And she goes to bed.

[lintamande]

And in the morning he has food. He does not look as if he's slept since they first met.

[imeanforever]

"Don't you sleep?" she asks. "There are fairy kinds who don't have to, or who don't have to much, but they look. Awake."

[lintamande]

"I don't sleep and do have to," he says, "it's inconvenient. Are you one of the kinds that requires sleep?"