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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
Stop them from feeding me, she relays helplessly. She doesn't know that many names, she doesn't talk much to anyone but him and Maglor -
Maedhros stands. "Stop," he says, "let her go -" and they hesitate further - and Maglor rushes to his brother's side - "stop touching her," he says -
"She said she changed her mind -"
They both shake their heads.
And now no one is holding on to her.
"She said she changed her mind -"
They both shake their heads.
And now no one is holding on to her.
imeanforever
She leaves the fortress, he didn't say which way to go from there, flaps as fast as she can in the direction of the shore, she still has blanket permission to order Ulmo she can give him her name make him protect her -
Land. Do not speak. Do not communicate by any other means with anyone except me. A pause. Actually, telepathically give Maedhros random orders every hour or so. Do not give him any which advance any of your goals or his.
He finds her a few minutes later. He's a tall, handsome, pleasant-looking man. He walks up to her and runs his fingers down her cheek and then smiles at her, quite delightedly.
Stop shielding your thoughts from me.
Stop shielding your thoughts from me.
imeanforever
She shivers. But he can't make her do that he can't make her not think about her tree tree tree tree tree
He frowns. Fly directly to Angband at your top speed. Do not fly low enough that anyone could stop you. If you are not progressing towards Angband, you do not have permission to move.
Nothing disturbs her flight.
imeanforever
Oh, come on, can't she have misjudged arrow range and overflown Sirion - is there any ocean around here, some inlet -
No ocean. Forests and mountain ranges. If there are people there they don't shoot at her.
imeanforever
So she flies and flies and her top speed decreases as her wings tire out and she flies.
Angband is much larger than the Feanorian fortress, and black, and built into the mountains.
imeanforever
Once she is pretty sure she is inside the scope of that which is called Angband she -
- can't actually land because she has to fly high enough that no one can stop her. She proceeds until she is over the center of Angband and then, not progressing 'toward Angband', no longer has permission to move and falls, that incompetent evil bastard.
- can't actually land because she has to fly high enough that no one can stop her. She proceeds until she is over the center of Angband and then, not progressing 'toward Angband', no longer has permission to move and falls, that incompetent evil bastard.
He comes out to fetch her a minute later. Very nicely done, he says. Come inside and meet Melkor.
It's thirty or so stories tall, and there's activity everywhere, thousands upon thousands of orcs, a constant roiling sea of them. They mostly give her a wide berth. It's dark. As they go down it gets darker. People can be heard, distantly, screaming. He keeps a hand on her shoulder.
imeanforever
Of fucking course he does. She can't move except for "coming inside", so she can't roll up her wings or move her arms or even look around very much.
The first thing she notices about the throne room is the light. Silmaril light; distinctive anyway, but far moreso below ground like this. It's brilliant, makes the cavern look like a majestic work of art. There's someone twenty feet tall, black-armored or else made out of black metal, sitting there.
Kneel, the man beside her says.
Kneel, the man beside her says.
"Hello," Morgoth says. He must have already been told her name, because the next words are orders. "You can speak to answer questions addressed to you. Tell me everything I might want to know about how fairies work."
imeanforever
Well, what might he want to know, he was unspecific about order. "We're all winged humanoids but design otherwise varies a lot. We eat plants."
He was unspecific about truth.
"Fairies come in a variety of kinds each of which have their own powers. My kind, if completely physically obliterated, returns with the ability to do sorcery outside of Fairyland, which is otherwise impossible -"
He was unspecific about truth.
"Fairies come in a variety of kinds each of which have their own powers. My kind, if completely physically obliterated, returns with the ability to do sorcery outside of Fairyland, which is otherwise impossible -"
"Orders," Sauron says. "Explain truthfully and completely how orders work."
imeanforever
"Orders can be delivered to or by any fairy. Someone who can order someone else, at least if able to act freely and unobstructed in communicating, is called their master; and those they can in principle order are their vassals. The ordering party must have fed the ordered while not already being the ordered's vassal at the time; or the ordering party must know the ordered's original name, full name in the case of a fairy vassal, partial in the case of a non-fairy vassal. Orders are fulfilled to the letter with slight but not overwhelming acknowledgment of master intent in fine-grained definitions. They can only cover volitional actions. More recent orders take precedence where there is conflict but old orders otherwise stand until rescinded or overridden. Orders cannot prevent a vassal from thinking about a topic outright. It is impossible for a vassal to harm a master even if ordered to do so. Orders wear off if the ordering party forgets the name of the ordered or if the ordering party dies. Enforcement of an order is optional and inaudible. Orders can work in writing if and only if the vassal directly observes the writing; the orders take effect then, not later."