leave of absence | Glowfic Constellation

"I hope you're right. Did you get dinner? There are wild turkeys here."

purposeful_glory

"I haven't yet. Maybe I'll go bag a turkey."

"If you're that hungry, sure. We have some left over, too."

purposeful_glory

"I could eat half a turkey. And I don't know what Maitimo's been able to find."

"Oh, right." She presses her lips together. "Happy hunting."

purposeful_glory

"Thank you."

And Loki goes looking for turkeys.

The very large Nolofinwëan host has clearly picked over the area near their camp. If she goes bird she can get much farther, though, and there are in fact wild turkeys. There's also Irissë, who's collected ten or so.

purposeful_glory

Loki goes bird, why not, nobody's going to think it's cheating. Spears turkey. Rendezvouses with Irissë. "Good evening."

"Isn't it? I'm useful! As something more than physical body heat and shitty emotional support. The ice was not my fortë. How's Maitimo?"

purposeful_glory

"Not dangling from a cliff. I'll probably start teaching him to fly tomorrow morning."

"Good," she says. "Well, it would possibly not be good if he could transform at will, but as long as you control it -"

purposeful_glory

"I mean, he could fly away and never let me find him again, but yeah, I'll have to turn him to and fro. He thinks it would be costly for the Enemy to simulate an entire continent."

She nods. "Mmhm, Are you picking his brain about the enemy's capabilities as they pertain to things other than super-unconventional interrogation? It would be good for us to know, and there's no reason he should hesitate to tell you."

purposeful_glory

"Good point. Any suggestions for what I should ask?"

"How many prisoners, how they're held, how long they're typically kept alive, why do all the rescue attempts fail, how many soldiers, what would you face if you went into Angband, how directly involved is Moringotto..."

purposeful_glory

Notes, notes. "Apparently someone called Thauron was handling his mind control for a while; he thinks I'm somebody else now."

She shrugs. "Not known to me - oh, wait." And she bursts into giggles. "Maitimo."

purposeful_glory

"What?"

"it's not really very funny. Ah, Quenya shifts over time, as the habits of the speakers change. Fëanor's mother was named Miriel Serindë, except at the time we had an additional phoneme - I can't even pronounce it - what's Elwë's full name, do you happen to remember?"

purposeful_glory

"Elwë Thingol? What, could you not pronounce my sister's name either? Thor?"

"We don't have a voiced 'th' in the language. I can approximate it pretty well - it's near 'z' and I don't think about it much, and actually your translation spell might be helping smooth over my accent. Anyway, Fëanor's mother preferred to be called Miriel Therindë, and disliked the sound change. Finwë spoke in her fashion, until he remarried, and then switched to 's', as did his second wife - she was of the Vanyar, and they didn't have the sound change, but she said she wanted to adopt it as a symbol of her adoption of the Noldor.

Fëanor took it personally. He founded a linguistics guild and campaigned rather obsessively to preserve the 'th' phoneme. Thus his children will tell you that the local language is Thindarin, not Sindarin, that Elwë is Thindicollo not Sindicollo, and Maitimo will tell you Thauron when the Maia in question is known everywhere else - and he is very well known - as Sauron."

purposeful_glory

"Oh, I see."

"It used to be Mairon. He was a Maia of Aulë. Very talented one."

purposeful_glory

"Aulë's the one who created the Dwarves, if I recall right."