lintamande | don't touch me

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

imeanforever

Alisyrrabel

She doesn't have to struggle out of the grip yet, she can go limp, she can't open her mouth, she can't "accept" food but she doesn't have to bite them -

From:

lintamande

He does not consciously decide to pass it on, he is not consciously deciding anything at that point, but Thauron is listening anyway, is maybe present in his head more often than not, and -

Alisyrrabel, a new voice in her head says, amused, Leave the fortress immediately.

Edited Date: 2016-05-25 07:22 pm (UTC)

From:

imeanforever

Now she has to struggle, but she weighs thirty pounds, come on, get something down her throat -

From:

lintamande

They're disconcerted when she starts struggling.

Order Maedhros to prevent them from feeding you. Order everyone whose names you know to stop them.

From:

imeanforever

Stop them from feeding me, she relays helplessly. She doesn't know that many names, she doesn't talk much to anyone but him and Maglor -

From:

lintamande

Maedhros stands. "Stop," he says, "let her go -" and they hesitate further - and Maglor rushes to his brother's side - "stop touching her," he says -

"She said she changed her mind -"

They both shake their heads.

And now no one is holding on to her.

From:

imeanforever

She leaves the fortress, he didn't say which way to go from there, flaps as fast as she can in the direction of the shore, she still has blanket permission to order Ulmo she can give him her name make him protect her -

From:

lintamande

Land. Do not speak. Do not communicate by any other means with anyone except me. A pause. Actually, telepathically give Maedhros random orders every hour or so. Do not give him any which advance any of your goals or his.

From:

imeanforever

She lands. She doesn't speak.

From:

lintamande

He finds her a few minutes later. He's a tall, handsome, pleasant-looking man. He walks up to her and runs his fingers down her cheek and then smiles at her, quite delightedly.

Stop shielding your thoughts from me.

From:

imeanforever

She shivers. But he can't make her do that he can't make her not think about her tree tree tree tree tree

From:

lintamande

He frowns. Fly directly to Angband at your top speed. Do not fly low enough that anyone could stop you. If you are not progressing towards Angband, you do not have permission to move.

From:

imeanforever

She flies towards Angband, high in the air.

From:

lintamande

Nothing disturbs her flight.

From:

imeanforever

Oh, come on, can't she have misjudged arrow range and overflown Sirion - is there any ocean around here, some inlet -

From:

lintamande

No ocean. Forests and mountain ranges. If there are people there they don't shoot at her.

From:

imeanforever

So she flies and flies and her top speed decreases as her wings tire out and she flies.

From:

lintamande

Angband is much larger than the Feanorian fortress, and black, and built into the mountains.

From:

imeanforever

Once she is pretty sure she is inside the scope of that which is called Angband she -

- can't actually land because she has to fly high enough that no one can stop her. She proceeds until she is over the center of Angband and then, not progressing 'toward Angband', no longer has permission to move and falls, that incompetent evil bastard.

From:

lintamande

He comes out to fetch her a minute later. Very nicely done, he says. Come inside and meet Melkor.

From:

imeanforever

She goes inside.

From:

lintamande

It's thirty or so stories tall, and there's activity everywhere, thousands upon thousands of orcs, a constant roiling sea of them. They mostly give her a wide berth. It's dark. As they go down it gets darker. People can be heard, distantly, screaming. He keeps a hand on her shoulder.

From:

imeanforever

Of fucking course he does. She can't move except for "coming inside", so she can't roll up her wings or move her arms or even look around very much.

From:

lintamande

The first thing she notices about the throne room is the light. Silmaril light; distinctive anyway, but far moreso below ground like this. It's brilliant, makes the cavern look like a majestic work of art. There's someone twenty feet tall, black-armored or else made out of black metal, sitting there.

Kneel, the man beside her says.