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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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Huh.
That would be interesting, if true. Also worrying.
That would be interesting, if true. Also worrying.
purposeful_glory
She blamed the Valar for telling the Quendi who went to Valinor that it worked that way because that would make it so. Well, 'blamed'. Implies a more judgmental attitude than she has.
That is very inconvenient. Well, we can tell people here something better, but if people know it's expectation-controlled - he sighs.
purposeful_glory
...then? And, mind, I have this from a girl who has been so sheltered I'm not sure she could identify rain...
Well, for example. I have lived my whole life in the comfortable certainty that my activities, being unacceptable and against Eru's will and so forth, cannot get me accidentally married. Now I know that being against Eru's will doesn't inherently make something not the sort of thing that can get you married - so, now, could I? And if that got out, would everyone in that position end up in the same situation? It's probably wiser to categorically maintain that you can't, because that means it's true and I really don't want lots of people in socially disapproved unintended marriages. Especially since some people pursue that kind of thing specifically so they won't end up married.
I imagine Lúthien is unfamiliar with that sort of thing, yes.
I imagine Lúthien is unfamiliar with that sort of thing, yes.
purposeful_glory
I assume the idea I just had is terrible for at least, oh, six reasons...
What idea did you just have?
purposeful_glory
I am fairly confident that at least one of the six reasons is prohibitive and you have more than enough information to guess.
...this is related to Lúthien? It'd be extremely convenient if she fell in love with someone but you disapprove of that style of alliance-building and there aren't really obvious candidates, and you would not be suggesting Ido it. Some grand announcement about the true nature of marriage that disrupts peoples' lives somehow?
purposeful_glory
No, it is not related to Lúthien, and she's reportedly forbidden to get married anyway, and your reasons for caution about an announcement are reasonable.
He sighs and leans back. I really am not at all inconvenienced by this and am the best possible person for you to have talked to, but it still disturbs me slightly. Why would the Valar do that? Why not tell us it was something elaborate and formal that couldn't possibly happen by accident, or tell people that if they didn't do the customary one year engagement period without seeing each other then they couldn't end up married?
purposeful_glory
I don't know! I can figure out why Odin would have kidnapped a baby frost giant but the motives of the Valar are far more bewildering. Lúthien could be wrong, though.
Let's assume that for the time being, but not spread any information that could result in extra marriages, just in case. Did you know, it used to bother me that I couldn't marry?
purposeful_glory
I can't claim to be surprised. On a lot of planets you could, just not in the soul-renovation fashion.
Well, I should be very very glad I was on this one, as it turns out.
purposeful_glory
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHHHHHHHHHH
On even more planets than that you could get divorced.
On even more planets than that you could get divorced.
Eru, I petition to dissolve this marriage on the grounds that I no longer believe my partner meant his vows, or anything else he ever said to me.
purposeful_glory
AAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH
Generally you don't have to interface with a deity. Some places you don't need a reason either.
Generally you don't have to interface with a deity. Some places you don't need a reason either.
Asgard?
purposeful_glory
Asgard has no deity interfacing. You have to present a reason for the record but nobody cares if it's real, there's a joke about one's husband moving the soap to the wrong side of the sink one too many times.
And can you marry anyone?
purposeful_glory
Well, I'm a princess, ostensibly, so it would be complicated for me, but Thor's friend Fandral can marry six men and invite number seven over for holidays informally if she ever wants to settle down that far, say. Sigyn could do likewise, although in his case I'd be inclined to predict three men four women two hard-to-categorize aliens and someone who insists on gender neutral pronouns. Monogamy is popular, it's not mandatory.
I see.
You - must be lonely.
You - must be lonely.
purposeful_glory
If you mean, do I have enough charming conversation in my life, I'm doing fine. I even have more people to talk to about the old forbidden subject of 'magic' and the new forbidden subject 'frost giant' here than I had at home. If you mean, do I live in hope that I will find certain conditions to obtain among Men, you are entirely correct.
The conventional suggestion is to try liking girls, but as someone who never had much success with it -