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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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imeanforever
"Melkor's a Vala too, right, you said he reads minds only more so - does Ulmo -"
"I don't know. Probably in the broad sense. He'd be reading to determine that you're pure of heart and don't serve the enemy and unless he were interested not more than that, and of course you can say 'please don't read me, it frightens me' or whatever."
"If you don't think you can do this, it can wait. I don't know for how long it can wait, but the Enemy hasn't bothered moving against us yet."
imeanforever
"It's just a very high-uncertainty situation. I could have salvaged it if I'd screwed up in Sirion, I knew a lot of names there and they were all mortals, not -"
"Even if somehow orders don't work and he figures out everything that's going on, I don't expect that he would harm you."
"In - the way the Valar think -there are those who are outside their concern, like the Avari who didn't come to Valinor and who the Valar accordingly won't aid - there are innocents, there are those who have justly been sentenced, and there are enemies. And also, mortals really don't matter and you might drown one if you don't have any particular fate in store for them or if they'd annoyed you. Elves matter more, the Maiar much much more - they keep offering their own second chances. So you'd matter by their lights."
imeanforever
"...so because he couldn't kill me he probably wouldn't even drown me."
"Yes. Also you're a victim of me, he hates my family particularly. I think the worst case scenario is that he reads your mind and that's very distressing for you and then he whisks you off to Valinor so they can decide how to send you back to Fairyland."
imeanforever
"...what happens if he whisks me off to Valinor in the meantime?"
"You get Vala'd at. They're rather intimidating but they do not deign to personally injure anyone. They'd probably figure out how to rescind any orders I gave you."
"The latter. Promise, if you don't do this then I do not know how long we have but eventually Morgoth will come for us, and he will use you to conquer and torture his way across this world. Inaction is not a safe choice either."
"You have permission to go down to the ocean and try to give Ulmo orders, or give orders to others that help you get Morgoth's name. You do not have to do it. if you get the name, come straight back."
He pulls out a map and shows her.
"Nothing comes to mind."
Ulmo does not immediately materialize to greet her. Maedhros said that he would hear her.
Waves crash against the shore. Nothing materializes.
imeanforever
She sits in the sand. She watches the water. She'll give him a minute.
If nothing shows up, "It's a little urgent, if you're not very busy I would appreciate it if you'd come talk to me now."
If nothing shows up, "It's a little urgent, if you're not very busy I would appreciate it if you'd come talk to me now."