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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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I agree. I'm not sure how you'd have productively thought this through without asking me, though. That seems like it was the right choice.
One of the things the Elves were supposed to do, the reason Eru was supposedly annoyed that the Valar took us to Valinor, is help Men get started. Protect them and feed them when their crops fail and teach them what they'll need to know, that sort of thing. Leaving them for Thauron to toy with seems like a recipe for disaster.
purposeful_glory
I taught some of them some math, gave them the songs that would make any sense to them. But the Elves who live near them don't like them and scare them out of their forest.
Thauron's probably been playing them, too, whether they know it or not.
purposeful_glory
Maybe I should go talk to them again and warn them about that. They were aggressively unhelpful but unlike the last two hostile-to-outsiders forests I ventured into did not actually try to kill me, so that's something.
Or ask Elu about it, he probably knows their leadership. Most of the populations scattered east of here are his host. You could probably tell they weren't the Noldor.
purposeful_glory
I didn't get a look at them, but they called themselves Nandor.
There were three tribes beside Cuivienen. You haven't met any of the Vanyar, because they are intensely communal, all agreed to accept the invitation to Valinor, and move very slowly even by the standards of our people - it's typical to not do anything until a thousand years of discussion have passed.
My people were, even by Cuivienen, the ones who wouldn't stop inventing words and testing inventions. Not all of us accepted the invitation to come to Valinor but if you met some of the ones who stayed, they wouldn't be warily living in trees. That's the third host, Elu's people.
My people were, even by Cuivienen, the ones who wouldn't stop inventing words and testing inventions. Not all of us accepted the invitation to come to Valinor but if you met some of the ones who stayed, they wouldn't be warily living in trees. That's the third host, Elu's people.
purposeful_glory
If you think I'm a Maia, she says suddenly, do you think I can't swear falsely either, can I just swear I'm not a Maia?
I do think you can't swear falsely. I'm not positive that you couldn't cause me to experience hearing you swear falsely. It's also possible you're genuinely an Asgardian. I believe you that there are civilizations around other stars, and you have presented me with some evidence that you're not of this world.
purposeful_glory
Well, if it would ever amuse you to hear me swear things feel free to let me know. Although if it had been that simple all along I would have kicked myself for taking so long to think of it. Anyway. So I suppose I'll drop you off at the Dwarves, replace your wallpaper if you want it back, go bring Elu dire news of Thauron messing with the brand new Men and see what he says - go from there. Twelve days is a while if I don't have to carry somebody over the mountains.
A while even if you were doing that. We'd be having quite an interesting conversation for twelve days, you don't have a way to block me.
purposeful_glory
Oh dear. And what telepathic assaults would I have been bombarded with on this least pleasant of hikes?
More or less what I said anyway. I'd have tried to figure out whether this was the right thing to do, and concluded it wasn't, and tried to persuade you of that. If you were being unpersuadable for some reason I suppose I might have tried to move you emotionally, but I'm not entirely sure that would work and also I'm not very effective in a state of paralyzing terror, it was six hours last night before I was able to start thinking clearly at all and that was when you'd said you wouldn't do it.
For my shortcomings?
purposeful_glory
For your distress; for not having been able to present the situation in a less awful way. I suppose I'm not well calibrated enough to know if I should be disappointed that it was six and not two or proud that it was six and not ten.
I'd really like to spend no time unable to think about anything other than ways I could stop existing entirely. I should have tried fixing that before eating; I could have identified all of the relevant considerations immediately last night and saved you a day of time wasted considering it.
purposeful_glory
Shrug. I did some spellwork, I got some sleep, the time wasn't swallowed by a giant spider.
I also should have warned you about Thauron. I didn't because I assumed you knew him; it's not really fair to engage with you as if you're real while giving you information as if you aren't.
purposeful_glory
...yes, that would have been nice. I mean, you did mention he existed but that's close to all of what I knew. I wasn't even sure it was him until a ways into the conversation.
How did you figure it out?
purposeful_glory
I was sure once it was clear that you were 'a thing I stole from him' and that he wasn't personally Morgoth. Before that it was just my best guess on the hypothesis he was someone I'd heard of at all.
Moringotto doesn't leave Angband, to my knowledge, and you'd know you were in his presence because the immediate presence of a Vala is very obvious - you feel as if the atmospheric pressure changes, like you're moving through water, like you're staring at the Sun.