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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.
"I agree that it's a terrible situation. Perhaps the newcomers should make themselves useful and send an army."
purposeful_glory
"Arrows barely annoyed a Balrog. Will they even annoy Gorthaur? I am persistently confused about the logistics of opposing powerful magical beings with swords, but perhaps it is more doable than I have been able to imagine."
"They can force us to expend energy that I imagine Gorthaur is expending on more harmful things, and he will eventually grow tired and choose to depart rather than continually so expending his energy."
purposeful_glory
"The casualties would be devastating, though, and the more motivatingly large a force the newcomers send the more vulnerable their home ground is to, say, another Balrog or two, of which I assume he has several and with whom I strongly suspect he can communicate with over great distances."
purposeful_glory
"Perhaps the Valar would be motivated to hear that the Men are being so poorly treated and so badly misdirected, this early in their lives?"
purposeful_glory
Yeah, in like four hundred years maybe. "I will discuss the problem with the newcomers when I make my visit there tomorrow; they may have ideas, or be less averse to the idea of sending an army than I imagine."
purposeful_glory
Okay, good, they're not trying to stop her from leaving yet. "Is there more to say on this topic or would the two of you like to hear the message from last time I was with the newcomers?"
purposeful_glory
And so Loki digs up the diplomatic phrasing that the Fëanorians acceded to and reads it for them, Finwë being the only king of their people, gifts, ornamental flourishes.
Thingol nods. "We would be delighted to see our borders defended by weapons made by Finwë's children in Valinor; we will eagerly await the first such shipment. That delight is tempered by our knowledge of their violent nature, but perhaps it's suited to the violence of these times. Send our regards."
"I wish you would reconsider racing about the continent, though," he says. "I fear that you'll invite retaliation on peoples who aren't prepared for it."
purposeful_glory
"I have been planning to decrease my racing about," she says. "It was called for in the first weeks of my time here."
"We are glad to hear that. You have our leave to go, with the understanding that it may be wiser to remain."
purposeful_glory
"Thank you."
And she leaves the throne room and does not drop her fixed smile until she is a ways away.
And she leaves the throne room and does not drop her fixed smile until she is a ways away.
purposeful_glory
Sounds like fun. Loki appears there.
So, in your estimation, if I ever come back after I leave tomorrow, how likely are they to try to keep me prisoner?
So, in your estimation, if I ever come back after I leave tomorrow, how likely are they to try to keep me prisoner?