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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.
Yeah.
Beleriand is lucky to have you, Loki. The Men and the orcs and the Elves and Dwarves alike. It's okay if you can't win this one.
Beleriand is lucky to have you, Loki. The Men and the orcs and the Elves and Dwarves alike. It's okay if you can't win this one.
And they sit there until the hundred guards Lúthien is required to have whenever she leaves the palace start milling awkwardly around. I should go in, she says, it's late.
purposeful_glory
Yeah.
Loki goes in, does some spellwork while the speedup song loops for her - experiments with song combinations. They're not supposed to work but maybe they can work if the songs can't "hear each other"? She can shape baffles so she can hear one in each ear and the sound doesn't go anywhere else...
Loki goes in, does some spellwork while the speedup song loops for her - experiments with song combinations. They're not supposed to work but maybe they can work if the songs can't "hear each other"? She can shape baffles so she can hear one in each ear and the sound doesn't go anywhere else...
purposeful_glory
And of the spells that can be safely tried in a Doriath guest room one of them is the warmth song and why didn't she fucking think of that now she's blue again -
She concentrates. She breathes into her palms.
Her hands are full of frostflowers.
Ha.
The blue fades and the frost melts, when she puts the song away. She'll try the bigger blasts she knows the giants can do when she's not in Doriath. But this is good.
purposeful_glory
And in the morning she bids Lúthien goodbye and tromps out and flies to the Fëanorians, fastfastfast with the zooming song.
purposeful_glory
She walks in and then says, "I have unpleasant and substantial news, who's on deck for that."
purposeful_glory
"Yes, only people you don't know have died recently that I know of." She comes to the conference room, wraps it up.
purposeful_glory
"After I've told you what's going on I'm willing to sit through a lie detection song and confirm or deny relevant things if you don't care for the look of things," she says, "so bear that in mind."
And she pulls transcripts. Slightly redacted flight conversation, personal distress excised without comment and preparations for the game of Governor pulled with [irrelevant game discussion omitted for brevity] in its place.
Conversations with Men [some similar conversations omitted for brevity], Nandor - Thauron.
And Maitimo.
And Lúthien and Melian.
And she pulls transcripts. Slightly redacted flight conversation, personal distress excised without comment and preparations for the game of Governor pulled with [irrelevant game discussion omitted for brevity] in its place.
Conversations with Men [some similar conversations omitted for brevity], Nandor - Thauron.
And Maitimo.
And Lúthien and Melian.
purposeful_glory
"I suppose if you want to be really thorough you'll want to sing the lie detection song the long way around and someone else will have to quiz me. Oh, also, I can get two songs to work at once, could probably get it to work on wearable earpieces too."
"Yes, though that's not the primary reason I'm getting him. I'm glad to hear that, making two songs go well together is a difficult composition problem and not as fun as inventing them. I'm actually going to ask everyone to come here, are you going to feel threatened?"
purposeful_glory
"Assuming you plan to ask me questions and find my stated motivations satisfactory-if-confirmed? No."
"I am planning to hold a council of war and decide what if anything we can do about Thauron. I'd like it if you'd stop asking my not-quite-sane-and-in-intense-psychologi
purposeful_glory
"I'm not planning to bother him again. I'll leave him transcripts attached to paper with a Dwarf messenger, when I'm down that way."
"You and I talked about this with respect to my father. We're people, even people you like, but we're rounding errors in the games you're playing. At least my father is in a position to resent you for it if he likes, or forgive it if he shares your goals. Maitimo isn't in a position to do either."