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]

They are all very relieved it wasn't needed.

[imeanforever]

Yeah.

[lintamande]

I waited alone for Thauron to deliver the Silmarils. I am sure he was supposed to kill us afterwards but I thought he'd be tempted not to.

[imeanforever]

The first thing I tried was actually tricking them into thinking I'd be more useful if they obliterated my body, but they didn't get around to trying it.

[lintamande]

You think that'd send you home?

[imeanforever]

It might. I don't know. It was worth a try. I wasn't expecting Sauron to be so impatient and clumsy.

[lintamande]

A smile. The Ainur handle surprises very badly.

[imeanforever]

Anyway, I'm going to go see what I can find in the way of breakfast from what the orcs left behind, do you or they want anything?

[lintamande]

We all prefer not to eat, for now.

[imeanforever]

Okay.

So she goes looking for food.

[lintamande]

Orcs don't eat much that's plant-based. A lot of insects, and bread made from ground insects and things in that vein.

[imeanforever]

...she picks at it curiously, but she's not a fan. Alas. How far out would she have to go to try random wild leaves and stuff?

[lintamande]

Everything within a hundred miles of Angband is inconveniently dead. Maedhros says his brothers can bring her leaves if she likes.

[imeanforever]

Leaves, berries, whatever, as long as it's chewable and a plant.

[lintamande]

On its way.

[imeanforever]

Okay then. She doesn't think she's too incapacitatingly hungry to talk to Eru.

I'm sorry about being incautious with the immunization yesterday. It was clumsy and I should know better.

[lintamande]

You couldn't have known better, just listened better. But he sounds less grouchy.

[imeanforever]

I mean, I should have known to listen better. What do you think of Maedhros's idea of spreading out the requests so it's not all going straight through me?

[lintamande]

Most people would make even more mistakes than you if granted the power to have all their wishes come true. Maedhros might not but only because all his wishes are for other people.

[imeanforever]

Is there a specific class of mistakes you anticipate?

[lintamande]

There are several thousand people who'd wish Maedhros and his brothers dead, and sincerely not be happy in a world in which they walked free. I am not sure their death is the wrong outcome but wishes are certainly the wrong process. There are many people who'd wish for another to love them. I can do that. I shouldn't. There are people who'd wish themselves different, and not always wisely, or wish for power they do not have the knowledge to wield safely. There are people who'd wish things like "Give me every book in the world on this table" and then there'd be a black hole.

[imeanforever]

What's a black hole?

[lintamande]

That would be even more difficult to explain in terms you could understand than everything else I am saying.

[imeanforever]

Oh.

There's a thing some people do where instead of enforcing all their orders they enforce one to obey future orders, and more qualifiers can be arranged that way, like, 'if there is a reason I'm not aware of not to do this, instead of carrying out the instruction tell me what that is', but doing that properly requires more finesse with not using imperatives in conversation than I have.

[lintamande]

Fairy orders are not a good system.


A few of your requests could have created a black hole if I'd been at all inclined to do that, or if you'd been slightly more careless, but I do not want any black holes.