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Loki is not technically banished. This is just - giving her mother space. To think. About what to do with her wayward child. She will be called back in a few years for a more permanent decision. Midgard's nice enough, anyway, and Sigyn's coming along.
The Bifrost lights up in all its colors and -
- this might be Midgard, but it is not a part of Midgard she ever saw and not the place she was expecting to be dropped, and there is no Sigyn with her.
She holds Lævateinn ready as a glaive. Maybe her mother feared her sorcery and thought she'd best be sent somewhere deadly under the impression she was meant to survive the trip -
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purposeful_glory
The singing does not abate. Someone starts bringing trays of food around, though.
purposeful_glory
That's polite of them. Loki can pull an all-nighter more easily if she has food. She can sleep on the wing heading to the Nolofinwëans if she has to; it's hell on her navigation and doesn't do much for her flight speed but it's not nothing. Nom.
On the way to a midnight rendezvous with Finwë, Elu gets lost and runs into Melian. They fall in love at first sight and stare into each others' eyes for three hundred years while the trees grow from saplings to ancient oaks around them. Finwë searches for his lost friend, but in vain, and beseeches the Valar not to leave without the third host, also in vain.
When Elu awakens from his trance, even the delight he finds in Melian cannot comfort him in the knowledge of what he has lost, for now half his people have departed for Valinor without him, in bitter grief, and thought Finwë prostrates himself at Manwë's throne the Valar will not be swayed to return for the lost and forgotten third host. The two men share thoughts, occasionally, across the long and cold sea; but their memories of each other fade with the centuries and at last, when they call out at night, they hear only silence.
purposeful_glory
Well, that's sad. ...The Valar really suck. They suck even when their biggest fans are talking about them. They suck so much.
And now news comes from across the sea, of terrible crimes and unthinkable tragedy; Finwë is dead. It is a different sea, the song concludes, that they now must cross should they ever see each other again.
The notes of the beginning are floating back again, the images of two ambitious young men who decided to take a chance on a powerful stranger offering them paradise. Elu - the real Elu - watches them, eyes distant, and brings the song to a close. His people follow suit. The images fade.
"When Finwë and I first knew death, we thought it was forever, and faced it together. Now we know it may, in the long ages of the world, be amended," he says, "but he faced it alone."
Melian squeezes his hand. Maybe just a bit possessively. The Elves very slowly disperse.
The notes of the beginning are floating back again, the images of two ambitious young men who decided to take a chance on a powerful stranger offering them paradise. Elu - the real Elu - watches them, eyes distant, and brings the song to a close. His people follow suit. The images fade.
"When Finwë and I first knew death, we thought it was forever, and faced it together. Now we know it may, in the long ages of the world, be amended," he says, "but he faced it alone."
Melian squeezes his hand. Maybe just a bit possessively. The Elves very slowly disperse.
purposeful_glory
Loki is not sure if it is appropriate to comment, even inanely on the loveliness of the music; she bows her head slightly.
"Thank you," a voice says from behind her.
Elf? Maia? She has too small a sample size to tell, but the speaker definitely has an ethereal glow to her, and impossibly symmetric features, and impossibly clear skin, and hair that is way, way too long for it to make any sense that she walks around at all.
"You clearly didn't expect that you'd be coming to deliver such painful news," she says. "And, uh, my parents rather sprung that on you. Lúthien. Uh, there's a long list of titles, but I don't get much use out of them myself and you must have a lot to keep track of already."
"You clearly didn't expect that you'd be coming to deliver such painful news," she says. "And, uh, my parents rather sprung that on you. Lúthien. Uh, there's a long list of titles, but I don't get much use out of them myself and you must have a lot to keep track of already."
purposeful_glory
"I have found myself a little overwhelmed with names and epithets," Loki confesses, "and appreciate the restraint. Loki Odinsdottir; a pleasure to meet you, Lúthien."
"Do you need a place to sleep? We have many, but it may be a while before my parents think to offer one."
"This way. I can also just make you less tired, if you'd like that." She starts walking. The hair...lifts off the ground and floats, so it won't get damaged by dragging. Okay.
purposeful_glory
Well, that's a useful thing for hair to do if you're going to keep it that long. "Can you? How does that work?" Follow follow.
"Uh, I focused all my abilities on people, because for as long as I can remember there's been so many of them around me and the most important thing I could do was please and impress them. So I dance, and my dances are revitalizing and euphoria-inducing, so people see me walk by and feel more alive, and I sing, and my voice has the same effects - obviously I should have been working on what my mother does, which is protective enchantments, but it was peacetime and no one told me there had ever been a war."
She pauses. "Not that that excuses - I should have learned, I should have guessed, I should have wondered. I didn't, and now the world is pressing in on us and all I have is that my dancing makes people happy. I can pick up new things but it takes a very long time."
She pauses. "Not that that excuses - I should have learned, I should have guessed, I should have wondered. I didn't, and now the world is pressing in on us and all I have is that my dancing makes people happy. I can pick up new things but it takes a very long time."
purposeful_glory
"I have gathered that things in general work more slowly here than I am accustomed to. I have tended to consider my spell-development process just this side of worth it and it is just decades per, speeding up with each new one I learn as long as it's similar in any respect to a previous."
"Oh, that's impressive. I think for me it would be centuries, though I get more powerful at things I do by practicing them, so I can also do a lot of dancing in the meantime and see if it has more applications when it gets stronger. And likewise there are advantages from similarity - that's why I'm thinking I'll learn healing next, it's related to what I can do already and it matters."
purposeful_glory
"I have healing spells," nods Loki. "They've been useful here. More so than I could tend to manage at home, although mostly because at home I couldn't openly use them."
"Why's that?"
purposeful_glory
"It's socially unacceptable in my realm for girls to do magic, and I'm a princess so a little too visible to get away with it."
"You are? I didn't realize - may I hug you?"
purposeful_glory
"...If you like." Do not flirt with the elf that is a terrible idea elves are probably monogamous or something and this being a really pretty girl doesn't make it all that much likelier that you will still be interested after giving her a spin.
She is very careful to avoid touching Loki's hair.
"I'm sorry," she says when she pulls away, "I just - I know there are kingdoms in Valinor, where there'd be other people who understood, but Valinor is a painful subject in this family and I could never even express curiosity or my father'd look so pained. So it was rather like I was the only person in my position in the world. Why is it socially unacceptable for girls to do magic?"
"I'm sorry," she says when she pulls away, "I just - I know there are kingdoms in Valinor, where there'd be other people who understood, but Valinor is a painful subject in this family and I could never even express curiosity or my father'd look so pained. So it was rather like I was the only person in my position in the world. Why is it socially unacceptable for girls to do magic?"