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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 swear that I have never fucked you and don't expect to ever have the oppor- oh, relax, Loki, live a little - I swear that nothing I have said in this conversation has been untrue."
purposeful_glory
Loki laughs. She calls somebody over to test debirding. She tells people with shooting-stuff capacity please to not shoot at Thuringwethil, at least not if they're pretty sure it's actually Thuringwethil, Maiar are tricksy.
Bird. Debird?
Bird. Debird?
purposeful_glory
"Okay. That'll make getting everybody remaining taught to fly and into the city faster. Can you sense other Maiar even if they're invisible or whatever?"
"What I told you I'd try. Or come by as you, when you're out flying people. Or ring the whole area in fire and have something prepared to take birds down when they start taking off."
"I wouldn't have come by to make a deal if they were. I'm not up for a fight with Sauron, not in the mood he's gonna be in once he's got some feet."
"Not as good as the range on your turn-the-continent-purple trick, but I can see people in animal forms."
purposeful_glory
"Okay. Any obvious flaws in teaching everybody remaining here to fly right now and booking it for safety?"
"Sounds like a plan. I'm gonna have to part ways with you once you're over the mountains, though, at a guess Maitimo is not my biggest fan and wouldn't let me in his city."
purposeful_glory
"Well, that obviates the use of you being able to de-bird people so we can get through the lot of them at the gates faster. I don't require you to enter the city; you think he'd make a fuss about you being near it in a way I couldn't defuse in time?"
"Hard to guess, we haven't exactly had a conversation, Thauron doesn't keep his psychological profiles in a folder on his desk, all I know is you and you seem pretty defusing-things inclined."
purposeful_glory
"By the way, this plan involves you turning into a bird too, assuming that works on Maiar, which it should as long as you're humanoid at the time. Swifts're faster than bats."
purposeful_glory
"Okay. So I'll go turn twenty five hundred people into birds and we will talk details on how close you're willing to get to the city."
"Sure. I can't help with that bit, I could turn people into birds but then they'd just be birds, with bird-sized brains, as far as I can think."
purposeful_glory
"Well, certainly don't do that. Just holler if there's a Maia gunning for us."
And Loki rounds up literally everybody and sleepskips them all and turns half of them into birds and puts all the Elves on osanwë-teaching-to-fly duty and all the nonbird Men on bird flinging duty.
And Loki rounds up literally everybody and sleepskips them all and turns half of them into birds and puts all the Elves on osanwë-teaching-to-fly duty and all the nonbird Men on bird flinging duty.