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

[imeanforever]

Is that good enough for Maedhros?

[lintamande]

He nods. If I thought it were likely I wouldn't have chanced it.

[imeanforever]

What do you need a 'go south' order to cover?

[lintamande]

If the Enemy finds them again he'll have them brought back to Angband, rescind their orders, he'll know how you work. They need to get out of anywhere he can find them, without drawing the attention of other orcs to the fact they've been altered. Once they're about two hundred miles south of here I don't think the Enemy's wasting any energy down there, though there are Men and they might shoot orcs on sight.

[imeanforever]

...He's not a fairy, he can't rescind their orders. Unless oaths interact with orders in a way I don't expect and you didn't seem to expect regarding not sending me out after the Silmaril I got you again.

[lintamande]

Oaths don't bother you if you're doing everything you can towards them, and if you're mind-controlled not to do it that counts. He's a Vala and I don't know if he could imitate fairy magic if he had some to work off. Though it'd probably take a long time and in the meantime all he'd be able to do is learn from them how you work, which is still no good.

[imeanforever]

If you can't chance sending them south because he might find them on their way south enough then I feel very misled.

[lintamande]

I'll send them with an escort.

[imeanforever]

Okay. What else do you need from them?

[lintamande]

I'm curious what their orders from Melkor are right now but you don't have to ask.

[imeanforever]

How's, 'go docilely and without straying with the escort to be provided until they leave you, and then avoid traveling further north than that point. Avoid contact with Melkor and those in his service; and except in immediate defense of yourselves and each other, or to avoid that contact, commit no violence'?

[lintamande]

And if they contact those in Melkor's service, behave in whatever way seems least likely to draw attention to or allow anyone to guess anything is up.

[imeanforever]

Do you want them to revert to normal behavior entirely under those conditions except for not mentioning me or this incident in any way, or something more complicated?

[lintamande]

'normal' is probably not safest but it might be the safest thing you can cleanly order.

[imeanforever]

What're they supposed to say about how far south they were?

[lintamande]

Orders they can't share, probably.

[imeanforever]

...that won't work if Melkor asks them.

[lintamande]

If it comes to his attention we're in trouble, he'll just read their minds. I want to minimize the likelihood that it does that in the first place. He has millions of orcs.

[imeanforever]

Oh. Okay. 'If contacted by someone in Melkor's service, behave as though your location was due to orders from Melkor you do not have leave to share since discharged, and proceed to act as though this is the case without any mention or allusion however oblique to your capture or my existence'?

[lintamande]

That works.

[imeanforever]

Anything else?

[lintamande]

You could try your healing spell on them. Orcs are in constant pain. I don't think it'll do much but it's worth attempting. We did, sometimes, and they always refused to tell us whether it did anything.

[imeanforever]

"Do you mind if I try a healing song on you?" Promise asks the orcs.

[lintamande]

They do mind. No Elf-magic, thank you.

[imeanforever]

She thinks this is their prerogative. Is Maedhros going to make her do it anyway?