the stork drops, the snake swallows | Glowfic Constellation

"Do they."

secondchance

"Up until the part where you die, yep. Shiny rocks called Silmarils, distressing quantities of violence, I suspect the Valar were being provocative and just left that part out but you were definitely provoked and unlike them are architected to have any hope of understanding the concept of maybe not doing a thing you might be inclined to do. I was hoping to wait until I could go up to you and say something like 'look, N days after the X festival in forty-seven Years would you mind doing the following trivial somethingorother consider it a personal favor' but I don't think it's going to come together that clearly or simply, and if I didn't think the Valar left shame out of their emotional repertoire I'd think they were being deliberately evasive so they can blame the entire fiasco on" his voice goes syrupy and pious, "your rebellion against them and Eru," resume normal voice, "but this is what I have to work with. Shit goes down, you're in the middle of it with a sword."

"It is implausible that I'll get through all the Ages of Arda without ever doing anything that constitutes rebelling against Eru. I don't expect a sword to help particularly, and I expect if I had one I also had a reason. That doesn't mean the sword is the best possible means to whatever ends warranted it. We can try doing better."

secondchance

"Adjusting the cosmetic features of the situation so that it does not involve swords falls well short of my hopes for the situation. I have circumstantial evidence - only - that it involves oaths, and adjusting those away would be much closer to adequate."

Raised eyebrow. "There are many more obvious substitutes for swords than for oaths. I am assuming that there's rather a lot at stake here."

secondchance

"Likely several hundred thousand lives if you don't do something that isn't whatever you do in the prophesied version and I don't know what that is so extreme caution seems warranted."

"Elves come back, you know. I can think of lots of things I'd risk several hundred thousand of our lives for."

secondchance

"Sure, they come back after hanging out with Mandos having their brains worked over for however long it amuses him to hang onto them. You know what, I can think of such things too, but I bet it can be done better than stupid massacres over shiny rocks given forewarning, and what about Dwarves, do those come back. I saw somebody who looked a bit too short to be entirely an Elf in there too."

"Obviously given forewarning we can probably do better. I think you should be prepared for the possibility that there's a war in the future because there's a really good reason for a war in the future.

Aulë has an afterlife set up for Dwarves."

secondchance

"Well that's reassuring," mutters Kib. I was expecting you to talk more, he remarks to Maitimo.

Can you show him the bits concerning me.

secondchance

"You want to see some of it?"

"I would like to see all of it eventually," he says. "You can start with what excites you most."

secondchance

"First one I saw was this."

Maitimo, a cut-up wreck, ordering a massacre.

"I assume," he says to Maitimo, "you haven't decided to avert this by swearing not to sack any cities because you expect that there's something going on such that it came to this."

"Also we are really worried that oaths are what brought it about, somehow," he says.

"Someone takes you prisoner, tortures you - because that's what that looks like, to me - gets an oath -"

"Couldn't be done," Maitimo says, but a bit unsteadily. "I wouldn't-"

secondchance

- Kib cannot squeeze his hand in front of people.

"We should probably have everyone swear never to give their word under duress," Fëanáro says, "just to be safe -"

"If I were evil I'd erase the memory of swearing that, get another minor oath from them, and let it torture them forever," Maitimo says curtly. " I have been thinking a lot about this and don't see an obvious safe way."

secondchance

"Oh hell I didn't even think of memory alteration as an avenue there, is that a thing."

"Mandos can do it," Maitimo says. "He's a possible candidate for whoever we end up in a fight with."

secondchance

"If I had regular dreams anymore that would give me nightmares," Kib mutters.

"I haven't exactly been sleeping well."

"Okay," says Fëanáro, "so next priority after immortality is some kind of immunity to mind-affecting Valar, is that a reasonable summary of your aim here?"

secondchance

"...I mean. That would be nice too. But it is not actually what I was getting at."

"I can't broadly 'avoid doing an unknown bad thing', I can avoid being forced into one. If you don't think Maitimo, not forced into it, will orchestrate any murders, then that should be sufficient."

secondchance

"If you come into possession of shiny rocks called Silmarils I want to know what their deal is and I advise you not to set anything on fire without accounting for Telufinwë first in around fifty Years. I wish I could be more specific."