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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
Okay, so do you want - the original plan with a specific exception putting your boyfriend somewhere away from you, or...
There are probably lots of instances of the same problem. Go for the original plan with an exception in cases where violence would be expected.
imeanforever
Maedhros suggests that there be an exception where somebody gets a second-best option if violence would otherwise be expected, Promise tells Eru.
Okay.
Done.
Done.
There are suddenly ten people present, squinting uncomfortably in the sunlight. Maedhros looks exasperated.
"Hello, everyone," he says. "We won. Welcome back."
"Hello, everyone," he says. "We won. Welcome back."
"This is Promise. She - uh, she can give people orders, if she knows their names - Promise, please don't give any of these people orders - and she knows Eru's name so she's just - straightening out the universe.
Do they tell you, in the Halls of Mandos, what's happening out here, do you know what we did -"
Do they tell you, in the Halls of Mandos, what's happening out here, do you know what we did -"
One of the men present seems to have recovered more quickly than the others. He looks at her, sharply, when she speaks. "Can you say that again?"
There's something of a faint smile on the faces of the surviving Feanorian brothers.
There's something of a faint smile on the faces of the surviving Feanorian brothers.
"What are you doing?"
"He's interested in the way you speak," Maedhros says. "I didn't think he'd notice that fast. What language are you perceiving her as speaking?"
"At first it sounded as if she were speaking Quenya, but that didn't make sense, Quenya would have evolved over the last five hundred years and wouldn't sound that way spoken here today and when I tried thinking about which sounds I'd heard they were definitely all standard, like it was some smoothed over average of the language, and I tried to think what she should have sounded like and then the second time it sounded like that..."
"At first it sounded as if she were speaking Quenya, but that didn't make sense, Quenya would have evolved over the last five hundred years and wouldn't sound that way spoken here today and when I tried thinking about which sounds I'd heard they were definitely all standard, like it was some smoothed over average of the language, and I tried to think what she should have sounded like and then the second time it sounded like that..."
"You produce sounds. What sounds? How do you decide what sounds, or do you not have conscious control over it? Will all listeners hear the same sounds?"
imeanforever
"...I'm not sure how you want the sounds described. I'm not making them at random, but if I make the wrong ones they will not be the words I had in mind, and usually when I'm making sounds I have words in mind. I don't have a clue what I sound like to you but I assume if somebody who didn't share any languages with you were here it would sound different because everybody would understand me."
"And if I used a recording device? Macalaurë, did you ever get around to inventing a sufficiently high-fidelity recording device? I require one immediately."
"Yes, obviously, since there are tonal languages. Where are you from? Do you know other people who communicate in the same manner? Do you perceive the way we communicate as being the same as they way you do it? If I think about this enough and stop having expectations about what I'll hear, will I cease to be able to understand you?"
imeanforever
"Fairies in general all use plain speech like me. Fairyland's full of us. I hear you're supposed to be able to make me a gate there. I probably wouldn't notice if you switched languages but I can hear the sounds you're using if I think about it, I had to do that a lot to use magic songs. And I have never heard of that happening but my default expectation is that you'll be able to understand me whatever you do."
"Why do you call it 'plain speech'? It apparently involves making a number of simultaneous different sounds that are calibrated to the listeners, which you can't even know, or else making the sounds that would convey your thoughts in all possible languages.
If I switch languages to one with better technical vocabulary for a technical conversation, will I start hearing your responses in that one?
If I invent a language that doesn't use the vocal chords, uses entirely non-vocal sound production, what happens?"
Everyone else is still blinking confusedly in the light.
If I switch languages to one with better technical vocabulary for a technical conversation, will I start hearing your responses in that one?
If I invent a language that doesn't use the vocal chords, uses entirely non-vocal sound production, what happens?"
Everyone else is still blinking confusedly in the light.
imeanforever
"I think it's called that because it's just speech instead of encoded speech like everybody else uses. I have no idea what I sound like to you, let alone what I'd sound like if you switched codes. No idea."
"Father," Maedhros says, "Eru thinks he can explain black holes to you in three minutes. We can start working on a recording device for Promise after we've disposed of Moringotho and Thauron."
"Tell Eru he can wait a moment, did you at least run the obvious experiments? What does an observer who has been told to expect to hear Thindarin hear? What does an observer who has been told to expect a foreign language hear? If everyone present speaks only one language, does she still do the chords? If everyone present speaks only one language but there's someone within earshot who speaks a different one? Could she determine what language she's being heard as, once she knows how to identify them?"
There are a lot of complicated emotions on Maedhros' face. "We did not think of those obvious experiments, because you were dead. Perhaps after we've disposed of Moringotto and Thauron?"
"This is way, way more important than Moringotho and Thauron," Fëanor says, "whoever did this had a kind of magic I don't yet understand. Fairies are probably more powerful than -"
"Than Eru," Maedhros says, "which is why she's ordering him around and he can explain black holes to you -"
"Oh, all right."
"Tell Eru he can wait a moment, did you at least run the obvious experiments? What does an observer who has been told to expect to hear Thindarin hear? What does an observer who has been told to expect a foreign language hear? If everyone present speaks only one language, does she still do the chords? If everyone present speaks only one language but there's someone within earshot who speaks a different one? Could she determine what language she's being heard as, once she knows how to identify them?"
There are a lot of complicated emotions on Maedhros' face. "We did not think of those obvious experiments, because you were dead. Perhaps after we've disposed of Moringotto and Thauron?"
"This is way, way more important than Moringotho and Thauron," Fëanor says, "whoever did this had a kind of magic I don't yet understand. Fairies are probably more powerful than -"
"Than Eru," Maedhros says, "which is why she's ordering him around and he can explain black holes to you -"
"Oh, all right."
imeanforever
Promise giggles. Um, I think he's willing to listen to a black holes explanation now.