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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.
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"The peoples of Sirion must speak six or seven languages, and have weaker expectations about that sort of thing.
I am curious how it was there but would understand if you don't want to tell me about it."
I am curious how it was there but would understand if you don't want to tell me about it."
imeanforever
"They were suspicious of me until I swore I didn't work for the Enemy and then they were very kind. Elwing thinks you're going to chase me down for taking your Silmaril and I didn't correct her. - I started a sewing project while I was making sure I had a loose idea of how they functioned as a community and didn't bring it back. Apparently you can't just sew leaves here but I can work in fabric."
He nods. She is done eating. "Anything else? I will come back tonight."
He leaves.
There are a lot of people in the fortress. All of them look at her, but blankly, not with particular curiosity, and no one attempts to talk with her. The fortress is neat and elegantly laid out and not particularly pleasant. There's a courtyard with a garden.
imeanforever
Ooh, a garden. She goes and gets the book she was reading and takes it out to the garden and sits there and reads it. It is a little more frustrating to read the book knowing that it requires being telepathic to do the magic but it's still interesting.
No one disturbs her. Eventually it starts to get dark.
And shortly after that he comes in and offers her food without looking at her. "Maglor says he will teach you how music magic works if you are interested."
imeanforever
"I am. Is plain speaking likely to interfere or do exact lyrics not matter...? I guess I could learn to produce specific mortal sounds for longer stretches than names if it's important."
"...good question. I am not at all sure. You can ask him."
"I feel uncomfortable looking at you while doing this."
"It is intimate and we are not intimates. Do fairies have a concept of -"
He sighs. He does not finish the sentence.
He sighs. He does not finish the sentence.
imeanforever
"If that was going to be a personal question I am still allowed to evade those."
"You said Thorn had a consort, what does that entail?"
imeanforever
"She's the next highest ranking court member and considered trustworthy even under her orders, nobody but Thorn's allowed to touch her, Thorn touches her a lot. If you're asking if fairies have sex the answer is yes, it's just almost always at least vaguely horrible because of the background mastery thing."
"Among my people what we are doing right now would be considered sexual. That is, obviously, vaguely horrible and so I try ignoring you entirely."
"I am not -" his face twitches - "that particular kind of monster. I don't know how to avoid this situation, though."
imeanforever
"You're not being creepy about it," she says. "It's just a matter of how I work and the fact that there's no way to get fairy food."
"I had noted that it didn't seem to cause you particular discomfort, more than me being around to perhaps decide to order you in general."