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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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Marrying someone else as a way of breaking off an engagement is unheard of.
Having a society where the literate, highly capable, Aman-educated Noldor class mostly marries among each other and the nomadic tree-dwelling natives mostly marry among each other and we are in charge strikes me as more distasteful.
Having a society where the literate, highly capable, Aman-educated Noldor class mostly marries among each other and the nomadic tree-dwelling natives mostly marry among each other and we are in charge strikes me as more distasteful.
purposeful_glory
I'm not saying people shouldn't socialize. Or that you shouldn't give intersocietal couples a nice gift basket to celebrate their personally-motivated decisions and loudly tell everyone about that. Soft paternalism is fine, you have good reasons to encourage the habit. But 'let's you and him get married' rubs me the wrong way.
I assure you I'm not giving orders.
purposeful_glory
If I thought you were this conversation would be different. There's degrees.
I'll let people know they should talk to you if they have reservations, you have a creative approach to problem-solving and lots of leverage to help them find the right solution.
He sighs. Any time.
purposeful_glory
That seems to be that.
Oh - Tyelcormo - you were going to see if you could hit a sky-colored target. Erm - She fumbles through her notes and repeats the last couple lines from the last time they spoke.
Oh - Tyelcormo - you were going to see if you could hit a sky-colored target. Erm - She fumbles through her notes and repeats the last couple lines from the last time they spoke.
He answers with his. Right. Put one up for me?
purposeful_glory
She puts one. Moves it through the air at lazy flight speed, not a hundred miles an hour.
An arrow flies through it.
I'm not sure I'd notice it if I didn't know to expect it. But once I can keep an eye on it, yeah, not a hard shot, not when your speed is constant.
I'm not sure I'd notice it if I didn't know to expect it. But once I can keep an eye on it, yeah, not a hard shot, not when your speed is constant.
Nope, he says without even firing. I mean, I'm happy to try, but my eye can't even track the patch that's slightly wrong, and if I guessed -
He fires and misses by about six inches.
He fires and misses by about six inches.
purposeful_glory
Okay. So maybe - especially now I have the skip-a-night-of-sleep spell should I be in a hurry - I should avoid sleeping in the air.
And if you have to for some reason, make twenty of those bubbles and something that'll wake you if one gets shot at.
Hmm. Can the bubbles contain sound illusions, and if they're physically disrupted start playing the sound?
purposeful_glory
The closest thing I have to a contingency like that is illusions attached to real objects which detach if the object's destroyed. When I'm flying the only physical object I've got is me.
Then yeah, don't sleep on the move if you can avoid it. When you're awake, though, unless Oromë comes over here and personally wants you dead you're fine.
...if the Valar decide they want you dead enough to get off their metaphysical asses you are dead, did you not realize that? On the other hand, they haven't been moved to try even for Melkor so I don't think they will.
purposeful_glory
Oh, I realize it, just because I can duel a flaming Maia doesn't mean I can take down one let alone several Valar, but, well, they may have heard I exist and have opinions, neither of which activities I'm planning on toning down, so.
Oromë's arrows go where he wants them to. He could in principle fire them from Valinor. The Valar are very slow to do anything, ever. Right now I think that's in our favor.
...I bet I could make the fast-bird shot with Macalaurë doing the perception thing.