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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
"Is he the next candidate because of primogeniture or because he'd actually hate and be bad at the job less than the other options?"
"We adopted strict primogeniture because Maitimo's most qualified and I'm probably next most qualified and announcing a different ordering would have been silly and divisive back in Valinor when none of us were realistically ever going to inherit. And endorsing that approach helped Father politically in the obvious ways. I realize that now there's a war on and none of the old considerations matter, but as a consequence of that ancient assumption, we're the only ones who met the relevant people and cultivated the relevant skills. I am sure that any of my brothers would rise to the occasion in desperate need but me wanting to go sing stone into cities isn't desperate need."
purposeful_glory
"Fair enough. I will be happy to bring him a copy. I don't suppose you can sing those Maia-repelling sigils into stones."
"...probably could, given time. Time would be a few months, though, and I can't drop everything else or speed up my head."
purposeful_glory
"You could do it one song's worth intermittently like I do, can't you?"
"It doesn't help much with composition. One needs to actually play notes to feel if you're getting the effect."
purposeful_glory
"Ah, inconvenient." Sigh. "Think Maitimo will let the Men and a few adolescent un-oathed orcs and some werewolves move into his city?"
"Will this annoy Thauron?"
He smiles. Not exactly happily.
"You know, I knew I was going to watch my whole family die. Not thought it, not predicted it, knew it, like you know where your hands are in the dark. We get that clear a glimpse of our fates, sometimes. And here you are. And we don't know anymore. And -
- Thauron sent us messengers, when he had Maitimo. I expect he'll do the same thing to you. Father told us to shoot everyone on sight and not tell him anything they said or even about the fact they were sent, and the Enemy stopped sending them."
"You know, I knew I was going to watch my whole family die. Not thought it, not predicted it, knew it, like you know where your hands are in the dark. We get that clear a glimpse of our fates, sometimes. And here you are. And we don't know anymore. And -
- Thauron sent us messengers, when he had Maitimo. I expect he'll do the same thing to you. Father told us to shoot everyone on sight and not tell him anything they said or even about the fact they were sent, and the Enemy stopped sending them."
purposeful_glory
"I've been getting little presents. That strategy has - has merit, but I think I'm actually benefiting from something resembling closure about Vár, and there's some orc kids who grew up free, and - I've started telling the orcs to go home instead of killing them, which did slow it way down."
"Do orc kids get Elf-like, if they grow up loved?"
purposeful_glory
"They still look like orcs. Temperamentally remind me of Men more than Elves, really, although that could be because the Men did most of the bringing them up. - and I think the ones in Angband grow up loved. Abominably acculturated but loved."
"I have a lot of work to do. That my father is in any sense indisposed is very much a secret. I had to trade with the Nolofinweans for a few tracks of my own heightened-cognition song so I think Findekáno suspects what we're doing, but it's really important that it not reach the Enemy. As things seem to have an alarming tendency to do. May you have the skills to make your fortune fairer."
He stands.
purposeful_glory
"Likewise," she says. And she bundles up her notes and out she goes. "If anybody else wants to talk to me before I fly away again for an indeterminate period of time this is when."
Safe travels, see you later! comes a cheerful chorus of osanwë voices.
purposeful_glory
Okay then.
She heads for the Nolofinwëans as long as she's nearby and they didn't want to commit some things to messenger bird.
She heads for the Nolofinwëans as long as she's nearby and they didn't want to commit some things to messenger bird.
Their walls have also been recently disassembled and engraved. They're doing the same to the buildings, and to rows of stone planted every few feet.
purposeful_glory
Hey, Findekáno, what's the state of the art in identity verification around here.
We're paving the place with go-away-Powers, I think we're fine. Hi. How're the Men?
purposeful_glory
They are fine, some of them are werewolves, some of them are raising small orcs Thauron sent with an entourage of parents specifically to fuck with me. She lands. They are mostly not absorbing their Elvish assistants' prissy opinions about this-and-that. And I am concerned that when Thauron stops disintegrating into ice fragments upon trying to take physical form, that is still fucking hilarious, he's going to massacre them; I am considering strategies.
We got your letter. My brother's been petitioning Ulmo for a while anyway. Ulmo says if he builds a secret city he'll protect it at least for as long as anything in Beleriand can be protected, but you'd be ensuring they die last, not that they live.
How many Men are there?
How many Men are there?
Oh, that's not too bad. They have children in wartime, though, don't they? In a couple centuries they're going to outnumber us, we can't just build a city for thirty thousand and expect it to work out.
purposeful_glory
They have some children, yes, although I managed to give them the sex talk with minimal prissy interference and they're being more careful than they possibly could have figured out on their own to start out. I don't need to buy that much time, though. I'm working very fast on teleportation. 'In a couple centuries' is barely on my radar here.