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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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Yes. Interesting stories, really, but yes. When we rebelled and left, the Valar told us they were weeping not for Moringotto's marring of Aman but for his marring of my father, for all the beautiful things my father would have created and now wouldn't because he'd rebelled against them and went to his death.
Tyelcormo told me that I should have told them, that I offered to pay you to heal him. I'm not sure I should have. I got him to agree not to tell Father. He hates being an instrument to other peoples' ends.
Tyelcormo told me that I should have told them, that I offered to pay you to heal him. I'm not sure I should have. I got him to agree not to tell Father. He hates being an instrument to other peoples' ends.
The funny thing is that I think he believes he needs to create things to deserve to be alive just as firmly as the Valar see him as a broken font of pretty things. He still resents being reminded that everyone else does.
You've managed to tread just fine so far. Just - if you're going to resent the Valar for treating us like personally unimportant instruments of their pretty stories, keep in mind that everyone in the world sees him that way, and tolerates him or not basically depending on whether they think the pretty outputs are more common than the scary malfunctions, his own life obviously a rounding error in the calculations between those things. And to none of them is he a person. And that this makes perfect sense as an approach when the stakes are this high and also is horribly unpleasant to be on the receiving end of.
purposeful_glory
Most of my personal impression of him still revolves around him constructing silly Asgardian sentences.
But - rounding error, right?
I have people to meet with. Can you entertain yourself?
purposeful_glory
Yes. Thank you.
And she goes to the guest room with the beautiful tapestry and songs her brain up up up and works.
And she goes to the guest room with the beautiful tapestry and songs her brain up up up and works.
No one interrupts her for a long time, subjective time or otherwise. Someone brings her a meal at sunset.
purposeful_glory
That's nice of them.
She thinks she'll just crash here until it's time to go meet Maitimo. She will acquire songs if Macalaurë offers them under whatever licensure and attach songs to things as requested per their own appropriate agreements.
She thinks she'll just crash here until it's time to go meet Maitimo. She will acquire songs if Macalaurë offers them under whatever licensure and attach songs to things as requested per their own appropriate agreements.
A few uneventful days means a lot of progress. The Fëanorians do end up accepting the songs-in-soundproofed-boxes, though they ask for a box for each pebble for easier distribution. The engineers are delighted. "There are songs to make a forge burn hotter," Curufinwë explains, "which we desperately need, but the problem is that musicians as a rule hate sitting in the corner of forges singing and we hate them distracting us. This is going to be very helpful." Loki picks up the forge-heating song, the lie-detecting song, a wood-treating song and a song to summon wind, with thirty copy rights for everything and as many copy rights as needed to pay for Maitimo to go live among Dwarves.
Fëanor says that retroactive perfect memory is theoretically impossible but the theory doesn't account for multiple universes existing in the first place and he could probably do it in a decade if she thinks it should be the priority.
Fëanor says that retroactive perfect memory is theoretically impossible but the theory doesn't account for multiple universes existing in the first place and he could probably do it in a decade if she thinks it should be the priority.
purposeful_glory
Loki clarifies licensing for the first two songs, too ("anyone involved in the war effort" turns out to mean "anyone who's showing up more than those indolent Doriath folks and better able to protect their things than random Men")
It takes a special sort of mind to declare a thing theoretically impossible, acknowledge that it's actually even worse than that, and then estimate ten years. "That's faster than me learning to teleport even given my revised estimate with the perception speeder thing," she says, "and confers most of the benefits but at a remove - you'd still have to develop anything I told you how to make in a separate step and not currently having that sharp a memory I can't guess how long that will reasonably take but it will certainly involve things like mining for things of otherwise limited use and extremely high-precision very large facilities. I think it would be reasonable to prioritize it or not; you know more than I do about the opportunity cost."
It takes a special sort of mind to declare a thing theoretically impossible, acknowledge that it's actually even worse than that, and then estimate ten years. "That's faster than me learning to teleport even given my revised estimate with the perception speeder thing," she says, "and confers most of the benefits but at a remove - you'd still have to develop anything I told you how to make in a separate step and not currently having that sharp a memory I can't guess how long that will reasonably take but it will certainly involve things like mining for things of otherwise limited use and extremely high-precision very large facilities. I think it would be reasonable to prioritize it or not; you know more than I do about the opportunity cost."
"I'll do it," he says, "lots of things I'd work on would make us more comfortable but none would end the war that soon, and anyway it's an interesting problem."
He makes a shooing motion in her direction and starts writing.
purposeful_glory
She laughs and shoos.
And on the morning of the day she's supposed to meet Maitimo, she bundles up all her song pieces and she and nineteen decoy blobs of sky-blue head his way.
And on the morning of the day she's supposed to meet Maitimo, she bundles up all her song pieces and she and nineteen decoy blobs of sky-blue head his way.
He is sitting at the base of a tree carving little wooden figurines.
purposeful_glory
She lands. "Hello. That was an exciting week, but apparently Findekáno couldn't keep his brain to himself so you already know about some of it?"
"It was not an accident. I have been told that the Enemy is impersonating people, though not very effectively."
purposeful_glory
"I'm pretty sure the Enemy wasn't impersonating him. I mean, there could be a reason for him to telepathically bother you but there wouldn't be a good reason for him to come up to me afterwards and say 'I did something stupid' -" She pulls the transcript of that conversation.
"The real Findekáno is fairly intelligent even by the high standards of our family and would probably notice the irony of reaching out remotely to someone who expects the Enemy can manipulate his experiences to warn that person that the Enemy is impersonating people and to be careful. Your version of my cousin isn't bad, but it does him too little credit."
purposeful_glory
"What do you want me to do, upgrade him in the next patch? Apparently he sometimes does silly things under emotional stress. I would've advised him against if he'd asked but he didn't."