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]

Who let this guy design a universe? Promise might be glad of the opportunity even if it had taken Sauron longer to fuck up. "He doesn't have a good reason. Revised design opinions?"

[lintamande]

"We can still swear oaths. People can swear marriage oaths if it makes them personally happy, but it shouldn't happen automatically - and, come to think of it, any people should be able to -"

[imeanforever]

"Any people?"

[lintamande]

"Marriage oaths are between a man and a woman," he says. "I'm really just tampering for personal amusement here but it doesn't seem like they'd necessarily have to be."

[imeanforever]

Blink. Blink. "Wow," she says. "Who let this guy design a universe? Okay, I can throw that in." Arrange for marriage oaths to be optional - retroactively from now, if desired by the involved parties - and permit them between any interested parties whose existing spouses do not object.

[lintamande]

Done.

[imeanforever]

Thank you for being so indifferent about this, by the way. "Anything else that should happen before clearing out Mandos?"

[lintamande]

"Swanships of Alqualondë. Powerful magical - well, ships - that were the one-time creation of a people, were destroyed, and if I understand it cannot be made again because of their nature."

[imeanforever]

"What does it even mean to have a thing that can only be made once because of its nature?"

[lintamande]

"I'm not Eru, but luckily you have him on the line."

[imeanforever]

"He's surprisingly cooperative, even." What's the deal with the swanships?

[lintamande]

They were destroyed. It was one of the great tragedies of the Age.

[imeanforever]

Why couldn't they be remade?

[lintamande]

They were the sort of work that can only be made once.

[imeanforever]

Why is there such a thing as a work that can only be made once? Maybe there's a reason but maybe it's more "who let this guy design a universe".

[lintamande]

It makes its destruction more tragic.

[imeanforever]

"Who in the fuck let this guy design a universe," she mutters. Can you put them back?

[lintamande]

I do not functionally have limitations.

[imeanforever]

Great. Put them back.

[lintamande]

I have done so. I do not think that will be satisfactory to you.

[imeanforever]

Why?

[lintamande]

They were created in Valinor, so are now back in Valinor, but their owners have been relocated to a beautiful beach on this continent.

[imeanforever]

Well, put the boats by the beach with the owners.

[lintamande]

I would have done that originally but you said to put them back, so I put them back. Fairy orders are very terrible world-design, you know.

[imeanforever]

If I ever find someone who designed them I will take it up with that person at that time. Can you make me immune to receipt of orders?