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

"Yes."

From:

imeanforever

Confirmed.

From:

lintamande

Thank you. Osanwë can apparently sound very brittle.

From:

imeanforever

Promise regards Sauron thoughtfully. He probably picked those last words for a last-ditch attempt at evoking mercy, but they were genuinely helpful and everything -

...I don't think I'm going to get any less conflicted in any direction for the foreseeable future.

From:

lintamande

It was a very short redemption arc, Eru says with satisfaction.

Sauron vanishes.

From:

imeanforever

Well, as long as Eru's happy with it.

Okay, he's gone.

From:

lintamande

Declare it a festival day, Maedhros says, not with any particular joy in his voice.

From:

imeanforever

She sighs and flies out again to munch leaves.

From:

lintamande

Fëanor talks with Melkor. Everyone else heads south and starts building a city, mechanically, as if building cities on bare ground is a thing they do all the time.

From:

imeanforever

Promise has never seen a city before in her life.

From:

lintamande

Well, now she will. She is probably too small to be any use on the heavy lifting.

From:

imeanforever

Yep. She could sing? Is singing useful for cities?

From:

lintamande

It is! Maglor is going to sing some stone over and she can help with that but first they need to clear the site and identify good stone, and singing is less useful for that.

Edited Date: 2016-05-28 01:47 am (UTC)

From:

imeanforever

Yeah, she has no ability to help, there. She could write up information about how gates work, when you can do sorcery, in case this is useful for making gates when you cannot do sorcery?

From:

lintamande

Great! They will appreciate having such notes.

From:

imeanforever

So she does that. And eats plants. And sees a squirrel and is really freaked out.

From:

lintamande

So is the squirrel; it darts away. And then stone has been identified and Maglor invites her to help him sing it into place.

From:

imeanforever

Which she does.

From:

lintamande

The city rises around them quite quickly. The Elves are good at this and coordinate without speaking at all. Only some of the newly released prisoners are helping but all of them seem cheered to watch.