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

"Is that bad?"

From:

lintamande

"There are fairy orders in the world, I want to not exist, I am pretending to hold it together for you because it will not help anything if I curl up sobbing on the ground right now, I owe too many people too many things to abandon them but that does not make my existence tolerable to me."

From:

imeanforever

"I can let Eru make them stop working on you, he kind of wants to do that anyway."

From:

lintamande

"Please do that."

From:

imeanforever

Render Maedhros unable to give or receive fairy orders.

From:

lintamande

I have done so.

From:

imeanforever

"Done. Does that help?"

From:

lintamande

"Yes."

From:

imeanforever

She glances around. "Apparently Sauron and Celebrimbor-who-is-alive could make me a gate, but since I don't know where Celebrimbor is, standing near Sauron right now just seems pointlessly unpleasant. Also I would prefer to be wearing clothes. What say we address these problems." And she seeks an exit.

From:

lintamande

"Celebrimbor is my nephew. He's on the isle of Balar. Near Sirion. If you're bringing the dead back, my father could also make you a gate. No Sauron required."

From:

imeanforever

"Where do the orcs keep their fabric," she mutters. "Eru didn't mention that option. Possibly because he's dead."

From:

lintamande

"He's been dead for a very long time, might take a while to get adjusted. Can you not ask orcs about the fabric? Or steal one of their shirts?"

From:

imeanforever

"Yeah, I suppose." She looks for orcs.

From:

lintamande

They are kind of fleeing, for the most part.

From:

imeanforever

"Excuse me!" she calls. "Excuse me, I just need to know where you keep clothes around here!"

From:

lintamande

They keep fleeing, but Maedhros points her down one corridor, then another, to something looking very much like an orc clothing store.

From:

imeanforever

Okay cool what have they got in "backless".

From:

lintamande

She could rip things up?

From:

imeanforever

She will rip things up. There. Now she is dressed.

From:

lintamande

He does not give any sign of noticing. "What's your next priority?"

From:

imeanforever

"Good question. I didn't plan this in very much detail, I was concentrating on looking for an opening. There might be non-orcs around here besides us. I'm still pretty singed. There's probably still a war going on by default even with the orcs free, that's no good."

From:

lintamande

"There'll be other prisoners, yes. I think I know where. Can you heal yourself while we walk?"

From:

imeanforever

"Yeah." She sings and follows him.

From:

lintamande

There are other prisoners. Hundreds of them, chained mostly to each other, with nervous orc guards some of whom are still at their posts. They recognize Maedhros. All of them are in variously horrifying states. "Sauron can do healing," he says to her.