leave of absence | Glowfic Constellation

purposeful_glory

Loki, meanwhile, heads to Doriath. She tries painting herself a thin blue dotted line, which will blend in against the sky - maybe not to a Quendi who's looking for it, but to anyone who's not paying attention, surely - towards the headache forest, then blinkering herself until it's the only thing she can see. Should solve the veering problem and the headache at once.

This works; she can follow the line just fine.

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Good, good. Then she can go nice and fast without too much course-correction and no pain, erasing the line behind her as she travels.

She stops outside the forest, puts her dagger away, and is not sure whether to shout into the trees or wait to be noticed or what.

After about ten minutes, someone pops out again. "Loki Odinsdottir. Would you like me to convey another message to our King and Queen?"

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"I was hoping to take them up on the offer to remain here a little while and discuss sorcery and its applications, and I would also like to know more about where the locals are living and where it might be appropriate for other populations to settle without bothering anyone."

She goes silent for a minute. "Very well. Leave your weapons and come in."

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"I've already put my dagger aside." Lævateinn is a stick.

She vanishes into the forest.

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...Vanishing isn't a very 'follow me' activity. Loki waits.

After a minute she comes back. "You should not get lost so readily this time, child. You can follow your own footprints."

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"Tracking has not been a specialty of mine," Loki says, but in she comes.

The guard points at the ground. There are gold bellflowers sprouting there. "This is where you came through last time," she says, and then vanishes into the trees again.

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"Oh," says Loki to either no one or dozens of sneaky Quendi, and she follows her flowers. How does that work? Well, they're pretty.

They guide her several miles through the forest before she starts to recognize landmarks: meadows, waterfalls.

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It's a pleasant walk. She takes it briskly, pleasant though the scenery is; she'd like to get some research (and her map of local populations, if they'll give her one of those) in today if the Queen or any other reasonable sorcerous assistants are available.

And before long she is at the gates of Menegroth.

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Hello, the gates of Menegroth. Are they invitingly open or is she supposed to stand around or what?

They're not exactly inviting, considering the density of guards, but no one is barring her way.

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Loki nods politely to the guards and heads in.

There's a group of children - they look like miniature adults, even moreso than Asgardian children, and are extraordinarily solemn for being about three feet tall - filing through a hallway. There are musicians playing the Finwë memorial song still.

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That is a long song. Maybe she should come back in a year. Or three hundred. Is the throne room open and are the thrones occupied?

Yes and yes. Melian and Thingol might in fact not have moved at all since she left.

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...Do they react to her presence? Or maybe Lúthien's around and she can beg an etiquette lesson.

Thingol notices her and his face changes slightly, not in a particularly friendly or unfriendly way. Melian does not move at all; she might have been replaced by an exquisitely pretty statue.

"It's because she's a Maia," Lúthien says over her shoulder, "when distracted she doesn't breathe and she almost never does facial expressions if she's not formally having an audience, which rather prompts her to stay on top of it. I used to tease her about it, growing up."

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