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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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Waves, crashing. And then, a sensation of pressure and unnatural silence like she's underwater, and a sudden roaring presence in her head -
These shores are foreign to you, child.
These shores are foreign to you, child.
imeanforever
Please, it frightens me to have my mind read, please don't. She swallows. Um, yes, I'm not from here. I got lost.
Is that the urgent need that calls you here?
imeanforever
Not exactly. I don't know if anybody here can help me get home. I wanted to ask you if you could please tell me Melkor's real name?
The names of our kind are not in a language familiar to your people.
imeanforever
My people don't have a language, we just - talk. I should be able to understand it.
And to what end do you seek such understanding?
imeanforever
If I have his real name he won't be able to hurt me. Please tell me?
And he does. None of the sounds in it are sounds a human mouth could shape; a wordless, racing shriek. I fear he will still be able to hurt you, child.
imeanforever
Click. Only indirectly. This helps. Thank you. I'm sorry to have interrupted you.
You have not. I hope you find it the aid that you require.
He does not look good, when she sees him. He looks like he is barely standing, his face is bloodless and motionless, he summons a smile only once she lands and it's a smile she's never seen on his face before. "How did it go?"
imeanforever
"Fine..." Truthfully and completely. "- I don't think he noticed and I don't think he mindread anything sensitive before he stopped and I have the name now..."
He relaxes. A little. "Do you think you can use it?"
imeanforever
"I don't see why not..." Something is wrong. She's allowed to put out her ears, is there anything long and sharp -
He watches her. His face is contorted with some kind of terrible pain. That's not going to be enough, he says, you are going to have to think of something else -
imeanforever
- right. Telepathy. Shit. What happened. - Non-ordered vassals - she rockets into the air, yelling, "HELP" - flies low, she can't take food but she can be easy to catch -
He told them not to touch her. He told them she didn't want to be force-fed - he can delay, that is allhe can do, and from the intensity of the current pain the Oath is not amused -
(Another fairy had crashed in nearly the same spot, he'd heard the terrified thoughts and thought he could at least manage things better, the second time, had gone out to meet him, and as he'd walked in the world had frozen around him, so he couldn't move -
"I swear to you," Thauron had said, "that I have the power to give you the remaining two Silmarils, that I have leave to do so, and that if you tell me the fairy's name I will give you both Silmarils."
"I don't want them," he'd said truthfully, not that it mattered at all.)
He could delay. He was delaying.
(Another fairy had crashed in nearly the same spot, he'd heard the terrified thoughts and thought he could at least manage things better, the second time, had gone out to meet him, and as he'd walked in the world had frozen around him, so he couldn't move -
"I swear to you," Thauron had said, "that I have the power to give you the remaining two Silmarils, that I have leave to do so, and that if you tell me the fairy's name I will give you both Silmarils."
"I don't want them," he'd said truthfully, not that it mattered at all.)
He could delay. He was delaying.
Someone grabs her, drags her down to the ground, looks around in a blind panic and suddenly the Oath does not actually allow him to delay at all - Promise, what's your name - just think it at me, everyone else doesn't have to hear -
imeanforever
Alisyrrabel
She doesn't have to struggle out of the grip yet, she can go limp, she can't open her mouth, she can't "accept" food but she doesn't have to bite them -
She doesn't have to struggle out of the grip yet, she can go limp, she can't open her mouth, she can't "accept" food but she doesn't have to bite them -
He does not consciously decide to pass it on, he is not consciously deciding anything at that point, but Thauron is listening anyway, is maybe present in his head more often than not, and -
Alisyrrabel, a new voice in her head says, amused, Leave the fortress immediately.
Alisyrrabel, a new voice in her head says, amused, Leave the fortress immediately.
imeanforever
Now she has to struggle, but she weighs thirty pounds, come on, get something down her throat -
They're disconcerted when she starts struggling.
Order Maedhros to prevent them from feeding you. Order everyone whose names you know to stop them.
Order Maedhros to prevent them from feeding you. Order everyone whose names you know to stop them.