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]

Maybe they're just different leaves. Anyway, she assumes the underlying principles of stitching hold.

[lintamande]

They do! People are happy to bring her fabric to sew things.

[imeanforever]

So she sews some things. On the pretense of not wanting to get too absorbed in stitching, is Elwing likely to want to meet her soon?

[lintamande]

She's only half-Elf, you know, but that's still half-Elf, and she's got the children, it might be months. Is it important that they meet sooner?

[imeanforever]

If possible.

[lintamande]

Someone will ask someone who will ask someone who is helping build the palace.

[imeanforever]

Promise appreciates that. And everyone is being so kind about her privacy. She appreciates that too.

[lintamande]

Lots of people here don't want to talk about the past. Elwing watched her city destroyed and everyone killed, Eärendil did too, it's very common. It'll be all right. They'll cling here together in Sirion until the end however it comes.

[imeanforever]

What a depressing world this is. The mortal world's supposed to be nicer; she supposes this isn't the mortal world that is supposed to be nicer.

[lintamande]

It was nice before the war. So they've heard. The war's been on more than five hundred years.

[imeanforever]

Anyway, if she lightly implies that it is maybe important for secret reasons that she talk to Elwing can she get an appointment before she's impaired by hunger?

[lintamande]

Someone can take her up to the palace and they can wait there'd see if there's an opening.

[imeanforever]

Sounds good.

What fraction of the people around does she have names for?

[lintamande]

She has the names of about a third of the people in the palace.

[imeanforever]

Okay, that'll probably do if there's some kind of emergency, but she keeps an eye out while waiting.

[lintamande]

And eventually a young woman, looking exhausted, comes out to meet her. "Promise! I heard that you'd, ah, landed here and needed to speak with me. Do you need to speak with me?"

[imeanforever]

"Yes, I do, I'm really sorry about the intrusion. Can we have privacy?"

[lintamande]

"Certainly." And she gestures her into a side room.

[imeanforever]

"Are you sure no one can hear us here?"

[lintamande]

"They shouldn't, no. What's wrong? Is there a message from the Valar?"

[imeanforever]

"Wait," says Promise, apologetically. It's gentler than 'stop'; Elwing will still be able to breathe. "I'm very sorry about this but I need the Silmaril. Exclusively truthfully and exclusively to me, tell me what I need to know to take it away without any fuss."

[lintamande]

She looks confused, then angry, then terrified. Then - "it's in a locked box in my room. I wear the key on my necklace. It glows even in the box, it doesn't glow too visibly if you wrap it with thick fabrics before you put it in the box and wrap the box. Everyone will try to stop you. I could tell them you're allowed but I don't think they'd believe I wasn't being somehow coerced, there'd certainly be a fuss. If you flew out over the water with it I'm not sure anyone'd realize what was going on, not if I told them I'd just given you some food for your people or something bulky like that."

[imeanforever]

"Will people notice right away if you're missing the key? How confident are you that you can sell the 'food' story until I'm out of bow range?"

[lintamande]

"People will notice I was missing the key. I can convince them of the story but they'll notice something's wrong with me, they'll see - they'll hear -" she's clearly trying to move.

[imeanforever]

"I'm really really sorry about this. How heavy is the box when wrapped up enough not to be identifiable?"