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]

"...That's fine, you don't need my permission. Can I come along?"

[lintamande]

"Of course. Are we just...leaving Sauron and Morgoth standing there?"

[imeanforever]

"I'm open to other suggestions for what else to do with them."

[lintamande]

"Personally," says Maglor, "I think Eru should cast them both into the Everlasting Darkness."

[imeanforever]

"That sounds less pleasant and not materially less dangerous than just having them stand there and I don't even know what the Everlasting Darkness is."

[lintamande]

"Forgive me if I don't understand how orders work, but couldn't any fairy who falls in like you did release them?"

[imeanforever]

"No, they'd have to have their names or feed them, but these are admittedly not insurmountable barriers. What's the Everlasting Darkness?"

[lintamande]

"It's behind the Gates of Night, which are in Valinor, but I think only metaphorically. The point is that things which have physical form can't exist there, so fairies couldn't get in to change anything."

[imeanforever]

"I guess that's a selling point, but what's it like there."

[lintamande]

"Dark. Things which have physical form can't exist there, and light has physical form."

[imeanforever]

"That sounds really boring."

[lintamande]

"Standing in one place is also really boring, and far more dangerous."

[imeanforever]

"Yeah, I suppose you have a point. I wish I could just turn them into sparrows or something but I couldn't even if sorcery worked here."

[lintamande]

"Eru probably could, but I don't think that's safe. Sparrows with mind-reading and communicative powers and hostile intent are still not safe."

[imeanforever]

"Well, the way sorcery does it somebody who's been turned into a sparrow loses a lot of things that shouldn't strictly depend on whether or not you're a sparrow, but I suppose I can't assume mindreading would be covered."

[lintamande]

"Also, the Valar are not much like mortals or fairies and might react differently to being turned into a sparrow. And at least they'll have each other."

[imeanforever]

"I'll ask Eru about it."

[lintamande]

Maglor's expression twitches. "Yes, I suppose you will." And they start walking south.

[imeanforever]

She flies.

I got kind of carried away, she tells Eru, but it's a bad idea for several reasons to go on a universe-revising streak with a hostile vassal, even if you weren't as incomprehensibly powerful as you are, and anyway I do object by default to slave labor and shouldn't get used to having it. - Um, I'm worried that if I actually rescind all your orders after I'm done with the major problems of this world it will have time travel effects but I could say you can act freely or something.

[lintamande]

I commend your wisdom.

[imeanforever]

The remaining things that I might need you for would be doing something intelligent with the dead people, and Melkor and Sauron, and maybe Maedhros not wanting to exist if he doesn't, um, perk up without the oath and stuff. Am I forgetting anything? Can we cooperate on those things?

[lintamande]

You might also care about means to return to Fairyland, though there may be people in this world who would develop such means in enough time without me. We can cooperate on those things.

[imeanforever]

You said Celebrimbor and Sauron could do it; Maedhros thinks his father could too, is he right?

[lintamande]

Yes.

[imeanforever]

You could probably do it faster but I'm not in that much of a hurry, especially now that I can safely eat here. Anything else?