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:

lintamande

"Glow in the dark?"

From:

imeanforever

"Glowgolds glow, most strikingly in the dark. That's not their kind magic, they just glow."

From:

lintamande

"But doesn't everyone?"

From:

imeanforever

"No?"

From:

lintamande

"By glow, do you mean 'emit light'?"

From:

imeanforever

"Yes."

From:

lintamande

"Does Fairyland have exactly the same ambient temperature as fairies?"

From:

imeanforever

"Most fairy kinds cannot see temperature."

From:

lintamande

"Oh! So they glow by emitting a different wavelength of light than the one associated with their temperature. That makes sense. I apologize for taking so long to identify the confusion." They're in front of Sauron now.

From:

imeanforever

"Taking no extraneous actions and excepting mention of my name, which you may not say, answer our questions truthfully, with all relevant information, as concisely as you can under those constraints, and promptly," Promise tells Sauron.

From:

lintamande

Fëanor beams at her.

From:

imeanforever

From:

lintamande

"How did you learn that Promise was in Beleriand?"

"We captured some orcs who had ranged far outside where they were supposed to be. They said they'd been ordered there by someone who could make you obey her if you had her name. Then I observed the fortress in secret until I knew more about her capabilities"

"What are the elements, ordered by atomic weight?"

He lists them.

"Tell me whatever will be most valuable to me of the math and science you know -"

This may take a while.

From:

imeanforever

"If you don't phrase it as a question the order won't actually cover it," Promise says. "I can tell him to obey your requests for information but every order is a chance to screw it up."

From:

lintamande

"What would be most valuable to me of the math and science you know?"

From:

imeanforever

And she goes to repeat the same instruction to Melkor (defining 'our' for him since Fëanor's occupied) and goes to find some roof to sit on and sing, presuming that Maedhros and his boyfriend are still talking about their feelings since it hasn't been decades yet.

From:

lintamande

She's definitely going to get hungry before Fëanor's done demanding science lessons. Or before Maedhros and his boyfriend are done talking about their feelings.

From:

imeanforever

And there are like no plants around here, ugh.

She flies out in search of plants.

From:

lintamande

Everything around is mostly barren ash. A hundred miles out there are trees and so forth.

From:

imeanforever

Then it will take her a while to get plants, but get plants she will. Plenty of them so she has a while before she has to make more trips. She comes back full of leaves and with an armload more of the tasty kinds.

From:

lintamande

On her way back she will see Maedhros and his boyfriend. They are sitting on the ground, not touching, and wave her over.

From:

imeanforever

She supposes it is unlikely they were going to spend the next several decades continuously talking about their feelings. Over she goes.

From:

lintamande

"I'm sorry about the food situation," Maedhros says. "About sixty years ago he killed everything but I'd have expected some of it to grow back. We'll have to build the place for everyone to live a little farther south. What's my father doing?"