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]

"Is there a way to get most of the value from that question while not causing you much harm?"

[imeanforever]

"Yes, but how depends on what I'd think about your interests if I knew more about them."

[lintamande]

"We have been at war with the Enemy for more than five hundred years. We are losing. It is my expectation that within the next century he'll have killed everyone on the continent. I want him defeated but no longer command forces that have any hope of doing that. I have family; most of them are dead. I am sworn to the task of recovering something that was taken from us long ago, and I cannot do anything that makes me unable to do that task, or unable to do it well, and I cannot avoid it for too long. My concern with you is primarily for keeping you out of Enemy hands, but the Oath won't let me not use resources I have.

Are you trying to figure out a way to trick me into some kind of mistake that makes me vulnerable to you? If so, what have you thought of? If having a warning before I ask your thoughts reduces your distress, you can always delay answering questions like that for a few minutes."

[imeanforever]

She takes a breath. She thinks for a moment. "Mutual vassalization is possible and if it were in place I'd be less afraid of you because vassals can't hurt their masters, although not by very much because plenty of things don't count as 'hurting'. If anybody mentioned your name I'd listen and remember it but I don't know yet what a good opportunity to learn it would look like. I'm currently free to speak and enforce orders if I obtain any vassals, of whom I presently have none at all, and I can also put my ears out if I get my hands on tools, which would make it prohibitively difficult to control me with orders, although my existing orders would stand and it wouldn't make me any more physically imposing. If you're under an oath like you described that means I have to think about this entire situation in terms of it being your master and thus mine at one remove and that affects how decent a master I can expect you to be on the general spectrum of people who keep slaves. It seems unlikely that you're a good source of unbiased information on someone who you've nicknamed 'the Enemy'."

[lintamande]

"You may not give anyone any orders. Do orders have to be spoken? Giving them telepathically doesn't count? If you can't give orders, what changes if you learn someone's name, do you have other forms of power over them?" He isn't willing to stop her from putting her ears out. "Mutual vassalization is not acceptable to me but I am more than willing to give my word not to 'hurt' you if by that you mean physical violence. Are there other commitments that would make this situation less harmful to you without putting my people at risk?"

[imeanforever]

"Orders can be written if the vassal watches the master write it out but not at any degree of temporal remove. I don't know if telepathy counts but it probably does. If I can't enforce orders then the only thing someone being my vassal changes is whether they can hurt me or not and whether we can feed each other without adding new claims on the fed party. I - I don't want to be touched. Or ordered to hurt myself or anyone else. Or deprived of sleep. Or addressed by name even if you make me give my name which doesn't give you anything you don't already have unless you want to turn me over to another fairy, food works fine for nonfairies, are you sure you're not mortals you said the Enemy was going to kill everyone? If you're going to try to use me for any mental work more complicated than answering basic questions like this I will function better if I have time to - draw. If anybody ever finds a gate to Fairyland you probably won't let me go and get a cutting from my tree, will you."

[lintamande]

"I will not touch you, or let anyone touch you, or order you to hurt yourself." He does not promise not to order her to hurt other people. There is a Silmaril, there is an Oath, they are moving towards Sirion as slowly as they can but they are headed there. "Or deprive you of sleep, or address you by name. You can draw. We don't have much paper but you can certainly use it. I cannot think why I wouldn't let you go and get a cutting from your tree, is there a reason I ought to hesitate to do that?"

[imeanforever]

"The gate might not be anywhere near it. I'd be away a long time finding it and bringing the cutting back and if there was a loophole in my orders I'd have time to find it and if you gave me a self-incapacitating contingency for that case I'd be hard to collect."

[lintamande]

"I do not actually want a prisoner and am not trying to close loopholes so that you cannot escape me. I think the tree is fine. Do you require rest or - drawing time, I suppose - right now?"

[imeanforever]

"Depends on what you mean by require."

[lintamande]

"Okay. I'll leave. I'll come back in the morning. Don't leave the fortress or hurt people in it. If you think of a loophole that lets you do something that I would have intended to forbid when I asked you not to leave the fortress or hurt people in it, please tell me about it then. This is a horrifying solution and if you are rested enough to think I would greatly appreciate thoughts on less horrifying ones."

He stands. A bit unsteadily.

[imeanforever]

She shivers. She looks for somewhere to go lie down.

[lintamande]

There's a bed. There's a fireplace next to it.

He leaves and goes to Maglor's room and curls up in a ball on the floor. 'on the general spectrum of people who keep slaves', he says to Maglor when he comes in. 'on the general spectrum of people who keep slaves.'

[imeanforever]

Promise curls up in the bed.

She manages to sleep.

[lintamande]

He would love to avoid her until the Oath drowns out all else but by then he'll be much much less safe to be around. He finds some plant-based things. He goes back upstairs. He knocks on the door.

[imeanforever]

She's awake by then. She looks dubiously at her knee and more dubiously at the ceiling clearance. "Um, you can come in?"

[lintamande]

He does. "How are you? There's an important constraint I didn't mention yesterday. Delaying action on an Oath numbs all the things you care about that aren't the Oath, after a while you can't want anything else or remember exactly why you did. We are not going to delay action on the Oath that far, but the next action it demands of us is terrible so we have been delaying. That means it may be wise for me to find a solution with you that's safe for all parties, in the next few weeks, and then commit myself to it before I lose sight of it. Otherwise I would be inclined to leave you alone for much longer. I still can."

[imeanforever]

"I'm rested, my injuries are going to take a long time to heal without sorcery but they're not so bad I can't think around them, this is still probably a lot better than having arrived where I was going when I went through the tear. I do need to eat, just avoiding me isn't a great idea," she points out. "I can get by without much but not comfortably. ...what are you thinking in terms of a, a solution with me...?"

[lintamande]

"I have food. I want to make sure you don't end up in Enemy hands and don't go flitting around making slaves of everyone who gives you their name, those are the only really important features of a solution but they need to be airtight." He puts his head in his hands. "If you could help us that would also be good but I think we are beyond helping."

[imeanforever]

"You said you knew the Enemy's name," she says. "I don't know how to best keep me out of his hands if I don't know if that would even work or not. I don't want to keep slaves. I had a vassal once because a mortal was stuck in Fairyland and she was starving and Thorn caught us both before I could gate her home. That's the only one. You can phrase it as a question if you want to be surer of my honesty."

[lintamande]

"Have you lied to me about anything since you got here?"

[imeanforever]

"I don't remember everything I said to you since I got here but I don't think so and I am sure I haven't lied to you today."

[lintamande]

"Okay. Food? I have to personally hand it to you?"

[imeanforever]

"And I can't actually hold it either, I have to eat it out of your hand."

She is quite adept at doing this without any person to person contact as long as he holds the food right.

[lintamande]

He is also very very much in favor of that. He is staring fixedly at the wall and does not actually notice when she's done eating.