leave of absence | Glowfic Constellation

"No, it's not. It's also not what we're going to do if he dies. There's an Enemy right there, torturing and killing innocent people. I'm sure you'd feel better about helping a society of intellectual pacifists, but we came here to stop him and that's what we're going to do."

purposeful_glory

"It's not your war effort against the Enemy that has me concerned. Well, I suppose there might be a problem if it turns out I can cure orcs and they resent attacks on their uncured relatives, but that's rather farfetched. But however well I have preached charity to your cousins, they needed it preached for a reason, their resentment was not random, and I do not know what further provocations might be imagined in the millennia to come."

"Melkor played us all. If he were dead, I really can't imagine we'd end up at odds."

purposeful_glory

"Why would it have to be him in particular?"

"The years in Valinor were longer than the years in the Outer Lands, and the passage of time odd, so this is imprecise, but - my father and his half-brother made it through the first fifteen hundred years of their lives as friendly acquaintances. My father found it painful that he could not be the loving big brother the King wanted him to be, and his half-siblings found it painful that he did not love them, but they could spend a week traveling together without coming to blows or even particularly sharp words, and they respected each other.

Melkor arranged evidence - false evidence - that my uncle was trying to persuade the King to disown my father, and evidence that my father was trying to persuade the King to exile his second wife and her children. They both disbelieved it. They took six hundred years of careful lies on Melkor's part to start mistrusting each other. It was another two hundred after that before it devolved to the point where my uncle demanded before the full court of Tirion that the King disinherit my father, and my father responded by pulling a sword on him.

It wouldn't have happened otherwise. It is not organically going to happen again."

purposeful_glory

"Even now that there are old wounds to reopen?"

"We don't have any grievances with them. Are they going to attack us?"

purposeful_glory

"I don't think so, but they want me to train them in combat and I've been reluctant so if they meant to they'd have every incentive to mislead me. Also, they want some items currently in your possession and I don't know how many of them I can retrieve by offering to translate a dictionary into Asgardian."

"Fix my father, and I'll figure out how to get you everything."

purposeful_glory

"I haven't even listed the things. For all you know they've cooked up a desire to possess a Silmaril."

"We don't have the Silmarils, Melkor does. And I imagine they want everything on the boats that was theirs, which is reasonable but will be in some cases very difficult and in some cases unwise if they're still inclined to attack us afterwards."

purposeful_glory

"And you think you can accomplish this for me even if Fëanor is once again awake most of each day and may conceive some objection, even if I come here next week with Maitimo in tow...?"

"If I tell him I gave my word, he'll be annoyed with me but he certainly won't put me in a position of being unable to honor it."

purposeful_glory

"I am," she says, "very tempted. Do you mind if I go and convey this idea to your cousins in case they have awful things to say about your honesty or something like that?"

"Please appear outside the walls when you return.We've been trying to negotiate with that community for months and I have no idea when they'll be willing to sit down with me again."

purposeful_glory

"I am very sorry about that. Do you also want me to walk out past the walls to leave?"

"No, then the guards will just panic over the fact they didn't see you enter. Travel safely."

purposeful_glory

Nod. "I should be back in a couple hours if I don't see any orcs."

And she vanishes-changes-flies.

The other host is hiking again when she catches up with them.

purposeful_glory

She alights near Findekáno. "Maglor," she says, "offers me his word that you will have all your stolen possessions if I heal his father. Your opinion?"

"Oh," he says. "They're doing the thing where they patch around Fëanor's glaring shortcomings by committing themselves to some course he doesn't approve but that's good for him, and trusting that he'll forgive them. Maitimo tried that for a while. It doesn't work forever, though if Maitimo and Macalaurë are tag-teaming on it it might last a little longer.

If he said that, he means it. Is that your question?"

purposeful_glory

"I was already tempted to keep Fëanor's oath in force and am asking if there are hidden pitfalls I would not see now that this wrinkle has been added. ...And Maitimo is not a factor."

"If my uncle named Curufinwë as his heir then you should definitely keep him alive, that'd be a disaster. Maitimo's not in a position to help you? Why not, what's happened?"

purposeful_glory

"The Enemy has him. Or had him; they are hoping he is dead."