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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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"Those were, for the record, all armed and trying to kill me and succeeding at killing countless innocent people."
"There are so many orcs, and all of them are suffering, and all of them are under Morgoth's control."
"It's the name he's known by in these lands. Melkor is the title of his choosing, and his enemies do not acknowledge it."
He raises an eyebrow. "You done eating?"
"Good night."
Maglor has not commented on the fact Maedhros has started sleeping in his rooms, or is sleeping even worse than usual. The two of them don't talk much anymore. Sometimes Maedhros will reach out and squeeze his arm, as if checking if he's really there. Sometimes he will be in the corner of the room and not sleep at all.
This night is a bad night.
This night is a bad night.
imeanforever
Promise has not given any thought to her master's sleeping arrangements, because they mercifully do not impinge on her own.
And in the morning there is food.
Well, he's certainly not going to. Music lessons?
Everyone sits around and mopes; they probably wouldn't mind. She learns some new songs.
imeanforever
She'd mind. Moping is unproductive and no fun. Music is productive and fun. She is not going to bring any orcs back by moping.
Her voice improves with practice; she was untrained, not particularly untalented.
Her voice improves with practice; she was untrained, not particularly untalented.
And time passes in this unhappy fortress of the remnants of a people.
imeanforever
She learns songs, and gets pretty good at following musical notation, and trills stacks of chords with increasing fluidity. She sits in the courtyard and sings and makes it look like what she remembers of the forest around her tree. Once; she doesn't do that again. She isn't sure how Maedhros is planning to deploy her against Melkor if he doesn't know his real name. Maybe he's figuring out how to get ahold of it.
He is. He can ask her to ask Ulmo. This will get the Valar's attention, probably catastrophically, but their anger if they are angry shouldn't come down on Promise. He is waiting mostly for her to twitch less when spoken to, though that might take decades. He finds a copy of the Ainulindalë and puts it with the books she occasionally reads. None of the other Valar click.
Well.
"Promise," he says eventually, "I think you should go to the ocean and talk with Ulmo."
Well.
"Promise," he says eventually, "I think you should go to the ocean and talk with Ulmo."
"Can you give orders without making it obvious you've done so?"
imeanforever
"...Sort of. I can say 'please' and fold them into sentences and he'll only notice if he tries not to do whatever I say, it might be easier to miss if I give him a lot of temporal leeway like 'at your convenience' or whatever..."
"He also might answer if asked, he has no reason to help Morgoth and is helpful generally. You can approach it how you see fit. Ordering him not to tell the other Valar that you have power over him isn't a good idea; I think they can all read each other all the time."