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]

Oh.

[lintamande]

It wasn't one I thought I'd ever have even a partial chance to set right.

[imeanforever]

Well, I'm glad the time travel effects weren't too bad.

[lintamande]

Haven't even noticed them. Or - wouldn't I? Would I think everything had always been this way even if it was different?

[imeanforever]

Eru said that they were originally a thing that could only be made once, so to put them back he had to make it so they were not such a thing. I still remember being told that, I don't know what you remember.

[lintamande]

I remember thinking they were a thing that could only be made once. So perhaps he changed that fact without changing the fact people believed it and acted on it.

[imeanforever]

That's probably the tidiest way.

[lintamande]

Certainly less creepy than changing all our memories. Anyway, the dead are back, the boats are back - I feel better about being a mass murderer whose victims are all living.

[imeanforever]

[lintamande]

I am trying to think how best to apologize to them.

[imeanforever]

I'd offer advice but I don't really have any.

[lintamande]

I doubt they want to see me. I have no idea if there's anything they'd want to hear from me. I cannot put myself in their heads very well.

[imeanforever]

Maybe you could wait until somebody shows up demanding an apology.

[lintamande]

Finno did, He looks affectionately at Findekáno, who is building a house. But it was different because I knew he'd already forgiven me, and wanted an apology mostly because I wanted to offer one.

[imeanforever]

...I'm not sure how that makes it different except in being pleasanter.

[lintamande]

It is different than the circumstances under which most of the apologies will be demanded, so doesn't help me know what to expect from them.

[imeanforever]

Fair enough.

[lintamande]

Findekáno's family arrived nearby. They will probably be next. I - I'd expect Elwing to come eventually. Just warning you.

[imeanforever]

Yeah.

[lintamande]

I will of course explain to her how orders work and what I did.

[imeanforever]

I don't really expect that to clear up everything between her and me, but thank you.

[lintamande]

No, I don't expect so. I am sorry. You are really the first person to whom I owe an apology, but - science lessons and the tools to hop through the galaxy doing as you see fit really seems like it will suffice in some sense in your case, and most people don't want such easy things.

[imeanforever]

I could have gotten away if I'd wanted.

[lintamande]

Before I sent you to Ulmo, even? I realized later that at that point you could have done.

[imeanforever]

That was the obvious loophole in the orders I actually got but I was also not leaning nearly as hard as I could have on how guilty you were about it, and I think if I had you would have messed up exploitably sooner.