"She did very specifically say 'does not involve the Valar making you immortal' not 'does not involve you becoming immortal'."

"How promising should I find that?"

"I expect that that's a meaningful difference and something will make you immortal but I don't expect it too strongly."

"Okay."

"Taniquetil next?"

"Yeah. Thank you."

"Of course."


They go to Taniquetil.

It's a long trip. It is very boring. Annie writes notes and letters-to-Rirosseth and does not complain about being bored.

Which is good, because aside from singing he doesn't know how to make a journey pass faster. Though singing is safe now, it still doesn't help.

Well, it doesn't help Annie. It might help Istarno.

Slightly. They reach the mountain. They climb the mountain.

This is really not an activity designed for Annie. She gamely attempts it.

Should have grabbed the ring of grace first, but that would have meant more delays.

And apparently the Valar are not going to make her immortal so she can't super afford that.

Climb climb.

Eventually they reach an overlook where fourteen seats sit in a ring. Istarno announces her, and the air pressure spikes again, and a voice says Welcome, Annie of another world. 

...bow. "H-hello."

We rejoice to have your aid in healing Melkor's marring of the world.

"Thank you for the opportunity to help."

"You need to be able to touch the orcs?"

"As far as I know that's a hard limit on the effect but Aulë was able to work around a couple of drawbacks that were troubling me so it may be that this one can be worked around too."

"We could partially reembody orcs for de-oathing."

"That seems like it might work."

"What conditions will you need to work in?"

"It would be most convenient if I could commute every day from Istarno's but if that's intractable for some reason all I need are eight hours of sleep a day and human-typical amounts of food and water and some downtime to write."

"...we could probably arrange for Mandos to be a day's commute from Istarno's."  

A pause. "Yes, that can be done."