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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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"Okay. Food? I have to personally hand it to you?"
imeanforever
"And I can't actually hold it either, I have to eat it out of your hand."
She is quite adept at doing this without any person to person contact as long as he holds the food right.
She is quite adept at doing this without any person to person contact as long as he holds the food right.
He is also very very much in favor of that. He is staring fixedly at the wall and does not actually notice when she's done eating.
imeanforever
Eventually the food's gone. She can put it all away after as long as she's been without, no problem.
"Okay. Strategic information relevant to you not ending up in the hands of the Enemy. This world was created by the Valar. They are very powerful and have very powerful magic and one of them enjoys torturing people and has expanded from doing so recreationally to doing so millions-at-a-time while he does some kind of obscure long-term magic that will probably make this continent a power base for his eventual war with the others. They can read minds, like us, only moreso, and if you were in the Enemy's hands he would figure out how to use you and it would be a disaster. You being in my hands is also a disaster for all innocent people, but less of one, I don't torture them."
"There are ways to protect against us. I'll teach you them, they take months of practice but they're possible. Some of the Valar can, if they have you, read out your entire life and what you were thinking at each minute of it."
"You develop the habit of a mental distinction between public thoughts and private thoughts - you usually need to use some kind of visual or spacial analogy for it - and develop the habit of folding your thoughts into the private side. With practice you'll be able to do it automatically."
imeanforever
"It takes months?"
- she imagines thinking in her tree. No one can get her tree if she doesn't let them. She has never as it happens been forced to let anyone in.
- she imagines thinking in her tree. No one can get her tree if she doesn't let them. She has never as it happens been forced to let anyone in.
"Takes most people months. If you're motivated it can go faster."
imeanforever
She is motivated. (In her tree. She doesn't have to come out, nobody can make her -)
"Since you asked me to stop listening to you, I can't actually comment on whether it's working."
imeanforever
"- if that's the only way to tell if it's working I'd rather know."
A minute's silence. "I can tell that you're thinking, but not specifically what you're thinking. Depending on the metaphor you're using, sometimes there's an obvious way to fold your presence itself into the secret -"
imeanforever
Tree is sealed up. She and her wings can breathe together indefinitely, no windows no doors until she wants them nobody can see -
"That's the idea, yes. It usually takes a while to get the hang of keeping it when you're distracted or startled, so I'll continue not listening."
He flinches, again.
imeanforever
...She isn't sure whether to ask. She is hardly the party who gets to ask intrusive questions here.
"Did you think of ways to circumvent my intent that you not leave and not hurt anyone?"
imeanforever
"No. I didn't even leave the room, although you only said I shouldn't leave the fortress."
"I brought drawing paper." He hands it to her. "I have books, do you know how to read? Are you an adult of your species?"
imeanforever
"I can read just as I can speak, and my kind of fairy doesn't have children."
"Great. Then, the books are in my brother's room, the next one over. They have names in them. Truthfully and completely, is there anything you can do with names while the order not to give any orders is in place?"