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Tumunzahar makes Menegroth look like a contract project. Which, the Dwarves assure her, it was. The stonework is astonishingly careful and beautiful, silky to the touch up close while from a distance it gives the impression of stretching on forever above, a sky of stone with crystals for stars. Vast natural cave systems are connected by dozens of perfectly smooth, gently sloped broad stone pathways from which the fall, if she fell, would be several miles down. There are handrails. "We use those to move materials carts," someone explains to her, "we're not going to be reckless."
There's an amphitheater, a place where a hundred of the stone walkways twine around to create space for a hundred thousand people to sit in close proximity, and someone is giving a lecture or a demonstration at the base of it, the seats closest to him filled with eager, tiny, bearded Dwarf-children.
And they spiral down, and down, and down, past waterfalls and egg-sized gemstones left half in the rock and halls of crystal. Everything grows gradually more ornate and more perfectly maintained and the clang of hammers fades behind them. "People say," her guide says, "that we only have a council instead of a single King because there were nine winners of the competition to design the throne so we couldn't just select one person to sit it." And they push open the doors to reveal, indeed, nine thrones so elaborate it would be hard to choose between them, and nine squat bearded people sitting them.
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purposeful_glory
"I don't have a head for disentangling layers of pretense so I just take him at face value, which leaves him in fairly basic control of the interaction without having to manage my reaction more than one deep, but I can see why you wouldn't want to do that."
"Forgets that, like, at the end of the day the fact he has preferences isn't problem-solving constraint, they're not something to work around, he can actually just have them..."
purposeful_glory
"Does it work by bringing to the fore a preference not to be yelled at or in some more sophisticated way?"
"Not really sure. It's not like I did it strategically, growing up.
I love my parents but both of them were as distractible as a wild colt and anyway seven is a lot. Nelyo basically raised us."
I love my parents but both of them were as distractible as a wild colt and anyway seven is a lot. Nelyo basically raised us."
"This is more than enough dancing together for two people who want it known they're leaving tonight with someone of the same gender. Catch you later?"
purposeful_glory
"Later."
And Loki dances a little more.
And then she asks the brunette if she wants to go stargaze.
And Loki dances a little more.
And then she asks the brunette if she wants to go stargaze.
She does! She hasn't been up to the roof of a palace before, but she supposes it's unlikely the King has security on the roof.
purposeful_glory
...It is unlikely that the King has security on the roof tonight, anyway.
Is there actually roof access for people who can't fly and/or teleport?
Is there actually roof access for people who can't fly and/or teleport?
purposeful_glory
Loki leans in. Although she then says, "My home planet doesn't have the hair thing so all actually I know about it is to avoid it under most circumstances."
"What does your home planet have? And it's not a big deal except among, like, royalty. You really shouldn't lean on them too much to get a sense of how Quendi work altogether."
purposeful_glory
"Good to know. For various reasons I haven't run across anything which I can confirm is a thing of the relevant sort on my planet but not here. I assume you have, oh, kissing."
So of course this is the moment when the walls shudder and something osanwë-wails and Maitimo cuts through it - well, he can't talk over a Maia, he can definitely make himself heard while one is talking - with orders for a cover drill that is not a drill.
purposeful_glory
"Oh nine realms in a singularity," mutters Loki. She didn't even wear armor to the party. "Can you get down from here okay?"