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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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And he teaches her the next one.
imeanforever
And so on and so on. "Is it one pitch at a time for magical reasons?"
"We can only produce one pitch at a time with our voices. I can produce several if I'm using instruments, but I can't use instruments in combat very effectively."
imeanforever
"Oh. I never actually heard a mortal sing before. I guess it makes sense with how you talk too."
"Can you sing several notes at once?"
"Useful. In that case let me have someone fetch me a harp and I can teach you magic songs that are multiple sounds at a time."
imeanforever
"Okay. It's probably easier to teach me musical notation than to have me learn everything by ear in the long run once we confirm I can do magic songs at all, though."
"Yes, definitely. Would you like me to teach you that while we wait for a harp?"
imeanforever
"First order of business is to see if I can make the lights song work."
"There are only a few more verses."
She can make dancing lights. Maglor's face has more faint humor in it than approval, but he congratulates her.
So he explains it. He clearly warms up to the task halfway through, and by midday is wholly engrossed in it, sharing memory tricks and humming or playing examples.
imeanforever
Ooh, memory tricks. She sings assorted chords as she learns to read them. It's a little hard for her to sing different phonemes at the same time, compared to pitches, but it turns out she can do that too.
In that case he can pull out magic songs that require a choir, though most of those aren't combat oriented because back when it was worth doing that kind of thing there wasn't a war on. He has dozens of songs she could learn if she's interested, with all kinds of effects.
imeanforever
Gosh, what a selection.
- She wants to be able to heal. She feels nervous about not being able to do that. It was the first substantial sorcery she picked up.
- She wants to be able to heal. She feels nervous about not being able to do that. It was the first substantial sorcery she picked up.
"No one here can do that, and I don't think I have it written down, but I can teach you one which doesn't work for me anymore from memory if that's any help."
imeanforever
"Assuming the magic is in the notes and not in being taught the song by someone who can use it as a spell, yes please."
So he tries teaching it the same way he taught her dancing lights.
imeanforever
(She scribbles down notes about it, not full notation but enough to jog her memory.)
And when she has it down she sings it through.
And when she has it down she sings it through.
The burns on Maglor's fingers are already healing quickly, but now they're nearly gone, just leaving raw pink skin. "Huh," he says. "Thank you."
imeanforever
"You're welcome!" It's not as good as sorcerous healing for how long it takes or how well it does but it seems impolite to disparage his magic system when he's so generously teaching her.
"We never got really good at healing because we didn't need it before the war and during the war, well. I can teach you about the principles of composition that would let you design your own magic songs but that will take us decades."