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way island
eru thought this would be funny
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In the middle of Lake Mithrim there is an island.

There wasn't an island before, so the lake is a little deeper than before, creeps a few inches up the shore. There is a splashing noise.

The island is cut off in sharp cliffs around the edges, rising a foot or two over the waterline at the lowest points. On it is an expansive house, several stories tall, with an un-Elven aesthetic and un-Arda implied tech background. Sharp eyes might see non-Elven people, through the windows.

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He wonders, not for the first time, if perhaps this is all a hallucination. He dismisses the thought as unhelpful.

 

 

Can he read their minds.

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Not all of them.

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Some of them! That was a scary noise and now Jeremy and Joanna are both crying and Catherine's trying to imitate it at the top of her lungs, which is a bit of a handful.

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Welp possibly coming to the house before it was actually Fideliused was not a great idea after all.

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He takes Joanna off Rebecca's hands and tells Catherine "you're scaring your tiny little baby brother" and - well, they're not dead -

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"Either the time of day or the location has changed -"

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"I am going to guess location because we're in the middle of a lake."

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"Are the wards still up -"

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" - nope -"

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"What, all of them -" She pulls a wand and starts casting diagnostics.

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"Did the house elves come along - the owls -"

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"- some of the wards are up, the physical ones are, just not the ones misdirecting trespassers -"

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"Niblet -"

There's a pop. "Master Timothy -"

Timothy hugs her.

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"Owls are here," Theodore says from the window. "We have neighbors. Uh. We have neighbors who have drawn longbows on us."

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"Longbows?"

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"Do physical wards cover longbows."

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"Um, should, just like they cover - hail and stuff -"

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He's squinting. "They live in cabins. Super pretty cabins, like someone was doing driftwood art, but very cabins - maybe we're in the Americas? I'm not even sure those people are human, though -"

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"I vote for warding against longbows and going to say hello -"

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"Against arrows," Aaron says, "the longbow is the part that fires the arrows."

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"Against seventeeth-century Muggle weapons of all varieties."

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"Regular shield charms should be fine for that. If this calls for going out of the house."

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"I mean, we could stay in, but if they're Muggles, going out will help us figure out what's going on much faster -"

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"Okay, uh, who goes, you don't mean everybody do you -"

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"I am sure he means we should outfit Jeremy with a little white flag."

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"I presume this to be all my fault, I'll go."

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"And spend six months picking up the language?"

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"Yes, we should go," Finis says, bounding up and down, "if we're this far from home the language might be etymologically unrelated to any European ones -"

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"Clearly a very important feature of the situation." She kisses Minor on the cheek.

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Kiss. Shield charm. "We shouldn't Apparate across the lake, it'd probably scare them - Accio broomstick -"

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"Be careful. I love you."

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"I love you." 

 

The gate opens. They fly out.

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"Listening in on them I think it's more than a superficial resemblance."

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"The fuck is growing on their faces."

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"It is obviously hair. Maitimo, can I - Father -"

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"The Enemy has a gift for illusions. Ones so convincing you can inhabit them for years without realizing, even. But - yes -"

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The strange nonhumans lower their longbows. One of them walks forward to greet the broomstick riders where it appears they mean to land.

 

They land. 

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"Um!!!"

      "Yes, I noticed. If they're nonhuman then it wouldn't make sense for them to be nearly human either, maybe their real shapes are very strange and they're inhabiting ones close to ours for some reason - or maybe there's some kind of time travel involved, or maybe the mysterious spell works by reaching into parallel worlds, or -"

"It's uncanny. He doesn't look quite real. Uh, hi," he says to the uncanny him.

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You'll have to give me a few minutes for the language, he sends, and says aloud in Quenya as well. Finis lights up with delight. I am Curufinwë Atarinkë of the Noldor. 

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"I am Finis Eleazar Way," Finis says immediately in Quenya. 

           "I am Minor Finis Way," Minor says. 

"Of the - British." And switching to English - "where are we -"

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"Where are we?" he says in Quenya. "This is Lake Mistaringë - Mithrim in the local language - in Beleriand, which our tongue has no word for, not knowing the place until we met its people. I have never heard of the British."

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"Mistaringë," says Finis thoughtfully, "Mithrim." And then he guesses four more Thindarin words off the Quenya ones. He gets three right; Curufin corrects one. (Curufin is staring at him a bit fixedly.) And then, switching to English, "I think we are very far from Britain - and we shouldn't have miscalculated the size of the world so grossly that there were large landmasses we missed - we've circumnavigated it - not us personally, but I follow the march of progress -"

       "Circumnavigated."

Finis conjures a globe, demonstrates. "Circumnavigate. Circumference. Circumstance, circumvent - from the Latin -"

     "Latin?" 

Finis repeats what has been said so far in Latin.

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Please do not be too distracted to ask why he's got a sphere for the world.

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I'm getting to it. He's not; he's carefully repeating back the Latin. "British, Latin - we have Thindarin, Quenya -"

          "Oh, I also speak Swedish and Danish and Italian and French and Greek and Igbo and Mandarin -"

"We have - not as many -"

          "In the whole world? How far have you explored -"

"Haven't - circumnavigated - can't circumnavigated, no circum -"

          "Primitive people think that before they learn math."

"We learn math. Can't circumnavigated, no circum."

         "Can't circumnavigate, it's not round," Minor offers him. 

"It's not round."

         "Can show you with the angles off the sun."

"By all means."

          And a flurry of conversation later - "okay, yours isn't round. And your sun is close and dim -"

"Not that dim -"

         "Ours is very very far, and very very bright, if it were closer everything would boil and die -"

"Ours is drawn on a chariot by a Maia."

        "Primitive people think that before they learn math, too."

"Does your kind of math make you wrong."

         "Our world works on math! Yours might not."

"Our world works on fate."

         Finis and Minor look at each other and make a face. 

"- my father felt that way about it too. He's dead."

         " - is he me," Finis says.

"Yes. I think so. Yes. Only - moreso -"

        "Well. I don't have resurrection yet."

Curufin starts crying. 

Finis awkwardly offers a hug and now Curufin is crying in his arms.

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"We just got rid of the first one," Nolofinwë mutters.

        "He didn't introduce himself with any titles," Maitimo says.

"He doesn't need titles to make spectacularly bad decisions - though they don't help -"

       "I understand your reservations," Maitimo says. "But it looks like you get two of all of us, so -"

Nolofinwë sighs. "Win the war with them."

       "Oh, I mean to."

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Curufin explains the war! "- so the plan is just to invent until we can kill him."

      "We can perhaps kill him."

"Well, that would be spectacular."

      "And we can help with the inventing, you haven't invented many things. Do you have voltaic piles -"

"No -"

      Minor explains them!

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"What are they doing out there -"

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Timothy is holding an enchanted glass to the windowpane. "By all appearances they have met and befriended a local alien who looks strikingly like the both of them and are learning the language at due speed -"

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"Can I see -"

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He hands it to her.

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"...that guy looks like Minor without a beard? A little older, long hair, really tall, but - Minor without the beard."

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"Uh huh. And he was hugging my dad and crying, a little bit ago."

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"...anybody want to veto me sending a flying note -"

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"Go for it, they're acting friendly and I think they're Muggles."

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Minor gets a paper airplane. It reads What is up with doppelganger alien, do you need anything, estimate on how long till we know if it's safe to leave the house without a shield up?

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It flies. Minor writes back. With regards to doppleganger alien all I can do is push the confusion up a level - he's me, if I had been born a Quendi- that's what they call themselves - in a magic paradise with gods but not our magic or the printing press or gunpowder. He had a my father, he's dead - they're in the middle of a war. He has all my brothers, too. The language is genuinely alien. It's safe to leave the house - well, the other side in the war could attack unexpectedly, but you're safe from the aliens. The other me is married but not to a you.

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Miranda reads this aloud.

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"Well."

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"I'll go meet Quendi me. If we're doing that."

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"I think he didn't bring his magic dictionary and this would be a good time to have it, I'm tempted to fly it over."

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"I bet he'd love his dictionary."

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Miranda collects the magic dictionary and her broom and flies over to Minor and her father-in-law and... her... alien-in-law? whatever.

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Minor kisses her and excitedly explains his magic dictionary to his alien self.

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"Pleasure to meet you," he says, and then once he has gotten the magic dictionary explained he looks utterly enraptured and says it again with much more feeling. 

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"Thank you."

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"Do you want to meet the King -"

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"I have never met a king before. Do we want to meet the king, Minor?"

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"It's the Timothy."

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"Well, that's appropriate, although somehow I feel like hereditary power is almost a waste - should we get our Timothy first -"

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"Yes good let's have Timothys meet. - what's the range on your thing, Curufinwë -"

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The distance a person can travel in an hour, for a stranger. Thirty times that for someone familiar to you. You are invited to meet Nelyafinwë Maitimo, King of the Noldor, who if correspondances hold is a you, he tells Timothy.

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Timothy jumps.

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"Thing?"

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This?

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Miranda expectantly awaits a reply.

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" - no? You're being quiet, is that related -"

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"...huh?"

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"I can telepathically project information, memories, sensory experiences, images, and so on. Apparently you can't hear it. Minor can."

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"...I do a thing which protects me from mind affecting stuff." She offers Minor her bracelet.

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He puts it on.

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"It's not mind-affecting, it's communicative. But that might be it - that's presumably also the reason all of your thoughts are private -"

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"I should fucking hope all my thoughts would be in private!"

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" - so the way our communicative telepathy works is that you designate private the things you don't want to share, and leave public the things you want to share. It's quite common to, say, be sharing your vision so people who are at work in the greenhouses can see the sunset, or to send somebody a specific thought because you want to talk with them without shouting."

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"I do not immediately know how to adjust Occlumency for that. Timothy knows it too."

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"Well then maybe he didn't hear me and you'll have to take a message."

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"I can do that. You shouldn't assume that people who don't know Occlumency want their thoughts all public, it takes a long time to learn."

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"That's good to know, I'll tell people. How long - just reliably distinguishing your thoughts takes a few months of practice, depending on the person -"

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"I had it in months, Timothy took longer."

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"All right. It's worth learning to distinguish private thoughts, the Enemy will try to read you. Everyone here knows but the orcs."

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"...I will ask what orcs are later. I'll go get Timothy."

She flies back to the house.

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"Hi."

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"The you is king of the telepathic aliens, Occlumency works, let's meet Quendi You."

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"I noticed it worked, there was a voice talking in my head and I made it stop that. Let's meet Quendi me."

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Brooms!

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Quendi Timothy has absurdly elaborate robes and some really scary scarring. And can't talk with them if they can't figure out how to let osanwë work. Curufin and Minor are fetched from their engineering discussion to translate.

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"When you changed something to make the voice stop what did you change -"

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"You know the set of exercises on resisting Legilimency, there was a bunch of - imagine peeling layers apart type stuff -"

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"Yes - you don't have that all shored up by default?"

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"I have being unreadable by default, but if someone's trying to implant a memory or something I'd sooner notice."

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"I suppose there's a case to be made..." She waves tentatively at scary Quendi Timothy.

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"He says "hello"," Minor translates, "and he doesn't know a you but is very happy for me and do you both care to come in and sit down."

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She wonders vaguely if she should conclude unflattering things about her opposite number. "Thank you," she says, and she sits.

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"How much has Minor explained about the situation here?"

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"There are duplicates of some us - not me, apparently - and there is a war and you are no longer contemplating shooting at us and you're telepathic and lower-tech?"

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"There is a war. It's a pretty horrible war and I don't want to lean too hard on the 'duplicates' thing to earn your trust in the things we're doing to win it. Minor thinks your technology is more advanced than ours, and you don't have our kind of magic or vice versa - yours seems nicer -"

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"Nicer?"

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"Ours takes - " there's a heated discussion about lengths of time - "decades or centuries to get anywhere with."

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"...ours is faster, yes."

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"And it sounds like it also might do more and have more combat applications, which would be good."

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"Well, for one thing, somebody sent us here."

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"Our magic cannot do that, yes. The real question is whether you can kill Melkor but between two magic systems and three of -" helpless gesture at Minor - "I bet we'll find a way."

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...she giggles at the gesture and squeezes Minor's hand.

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"So, the war." And he explains the Valar and the first war and the parole - "three thousand years seemed like such a long time, see -"

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"...yes, three thousand years is considerably older than most extant civilizations on our planet, arguably all of them."

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"I thought you all seemed young."

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"I'm eighteen."

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Minor and Curufin double-check their guesses at the length of years, then - "Elves at that age are still young children."

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"Humans're of age at seventeen."

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"I think orcs are something like that."

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"I was going to ask what orcs are..."

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"Elves are - a soul temporarily inhabiting a body, and the shape of the soul shapes the body. If you torture an Elf from birth, selectively disable our ability to control our bodies, do that a couple generations longer, you get orcs. The Enemy breeds them by the millions and then has them all swear him eternal loyalty."

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"Um."

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"Thus the war. Well, there are a lot of reasons for the war, but that's one."

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"Okay. How sure are you that none of you are the same kind of magic we are, because Karen can make wands... in nonmagical populations at home there are spontaneously magical people sometimes..."

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"How would we know?"

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"Manifestations of accidental magic. Moving things without touching them, teleporting short distances, transfiguring objects, some people can shapeshift a little, some people can talk to snakes, accidental's usually under high stress..."

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"Tyelcormo can talk to snakes. And all other animals. Haven't heard of any of the others, except with music which does it deliberately -"

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"If ours went through music Michael would know about it but it doesn't. The snakes thing is only snakes - but it runs in families, it wouldn't be impossible for there to be a different thing which was not only snakes -"

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"My father couldn't pick it up and Tyelcormo has no children."

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"I don't mean there couldn't be a Muggleborn who had the thing, I just mean if there's a pattern where we're from it wouldn't have to be the same as a pattern or a one-off from here."

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"Well, he can certainly try your kind of magic. It sounds like a dozen wizards will make quite a difference even if none of us are."

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"Depends how much of one. If we're stuck here several hundred years - I guess if we all had extremely cooperative children by some miracle, we could avoid getting too inbred -"

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"Oh, there's a war on, don't have children."

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"Michael's wife has a religious objection to birth control and if in three hundred years you need a wizard you'd better hope we had grandchildren, humans don't live that long unless Finis figures something out."

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"Don't live that long? What happens?"

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"...we die? Of old age."

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" - like animals?"

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"I don't super appreciate the comparison but yes animals do the same thing."

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"I just mean that here sapients don't do that, we all live until the end of the universe - that's horrible - is Finis likely to be able to fix it -"

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"He's working on it, I don't know his exact current prognosis."

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He talks rapidly with Curufin in Quenya for a little while. "How long do you have?"

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"Wizards live to about a hundred fifty, a few decades of variance. Michael's wife, and Catherine, are Muggles and might have like eighty years total, they're like - twentyish and three now -"

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"Depending what causes it I could probably come up with something by then - or if we could get the Silmarils they could do the Valinor thing, buy us more time -"

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"What's a Silmaril?"

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"Until recently there weren't lights in the sky - there were stars, but not the big ones. Separately, Elves who've been exposed to the light of Valinor cannot exist in the physical world forever without it - it takes a very, very long time to come up, we're expecting on the order of ten or twenty thousand years, but still - when we wanted to leave Valinor my father made magical artifacts which produce arbitrary light, reverse the effects of being outside Valinor, and capture in full generality Valinor's anti-decay magic, which has lots of implications - we think we could use them to kill the Enemy, we could almost certainly use them to prevent you from aging and by default I think they'd do the thing Valinor had, where everything aged slower - I don't know how to use them, my father's notes were all destroyed when the Enemy melted the library and he was killed shortly thereafter, but I bet I could figure it out -"

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"...the sun and the moon are new? - probably not important - uh - yes those sound like they'd help - where are they?"

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"In Angband. The Enemy stole them."

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"In the perhaps staggeringly unlikely event that I successfully waved my wand and caused them to come flying out of wherever they are straight to us would this have undesirable side effects such that I shouldn't try it?"

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They glance at each other. " - might alert the Enemy you're here -"

      "- might have already noticed -"

"Of what they're capable of, though -"

      "Worth it, I think -"

 

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"Should I let you think about it another five minutes, demonstrate on nearer objects..."

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"I don't think there's much gained by doing it today, let's learn all your capabilties and maybe there are things that'll let us defend ourselves better if the Enemy is by that demonstration provoked to escalate."

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"Sure. Uh, in addition to generic stuff I can do some healing, Karen knows how to make wands - we're probably going to have a serious potion ingredient supply problem - uh, if you feel really strongly about us not having children that's a particular issue because we avoid that with potions - you saw the broomsticks -"

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"Without the potions you just ...have children? Spontaneously?"

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"There is an intermediate step."

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"Having some familiarity with what happens if the Enemy captures a person, I think you ought to skip the intermediate step."

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"...it's not that I don't see the logic, I just think this norm was not designed for humans and we really ought to figure out the potion ingredients thing and maybe have an extended religious debate with Rebecca."

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"What potions ingredients do you need -"

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"The gardens have most of it, if we just make really sure none of that dies the things we might not be able to get are animal ingredients, I think including unicorn hair, do you have unicorns -"

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" - no."

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"There might be a substitution, Karen might know, just... problems."

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Nod. "What do you have for combat?"

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"Lots of dueling stuff, some lethal, all short to medium range though - we have defensive stuff too, when we were concerned about arrows through the face they went out with shield charms up -"

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"How many people can you cover with those? Can you see through illusions? Is Occlumency teachable -"

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"Depends on the spell but a big dome one could cover a few dozen if they were close together - not by default - yes and it's not even really magical -"

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"The orcs should all learn it - they'd be able to keep private thoughts but on the other hand the Enemy wouldn't be able to talk to them -"

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"If they held it as tight as I do. Timothy heard you."

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"But they could be taught to."

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"Yes, over a long enough period of time."

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"Enemy sometimes sends families of orcs. With babies. We have to kill them all - once we tried not doing that, and it just gave him leverage -"

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"We saved a couple of the kids, but we can't just keep adopting arbitrarily many orc babies, especially not when he talks to them in their heads as soon as they're old enough."

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"- and he can't just do the same thing to Elf kids because you're not having any -"

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"Yes."

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"There are three very young human children in the household - and possibly also house-elf children, they're a sort of domestic servitor species and have children in secret -"

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"Hopefully the Enemy won't find out they exist and they should be warned to tell an adult immediately if there are voices talking in their heads."

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"Okay, but, like, please don't murder them or anything."

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"We've never killed an orc who hadn't sworn the Enemy eternal loyalty and if your children do that and you want to try imprisoning them instead we won't interfere with that."

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"Is swearing eternal loyalty here - noncosmetic -"

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"Uh, yes."

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"...we have a thing called the unbreakable vow which is magic and if you swear one and then break it anyway you die, but, uh, toddlers can't do that..."

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"If you swear anything you can't break it."

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"Humans don't have that."

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"I would be very sure it's 'humans don't have that' and not 'your world doesn't have that'."

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"Okay, what's a safe test?"

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"You could swear that for the next minute you won't say the word 'aubergine'."

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"And I just phrase that like - I swear for the next minute I won't say 'aubergine' - aubergine - how did aubergines come up in your language learning process this early -"

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"Yes, but quoting an oath like that isn't binding. We were comparing units of measure."

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"I swear for the next minute not to say 'aubergine'. Aubergine."

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"Well, that's convenient."

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"And we don't have to frantically attempt to censor the toddler's vocabulary, yay."

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"Yeah, oaths are really dangerous. Useful, but dangerous."

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"Mmhm."

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Timothy raises an inquiring eyebrow at his alt. 

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"I'll tell you later, it's a long story."

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"It's genuinely about a thousand times less important than having a complete picture of your capabilities and noticing other things like the oaths. How fast can the broomsticks travel, can we fly them -"

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"You can't if you count as Muggles but checking if brooms respond to you is probably the most efficient way to make sure of that. Hundred miles an hour, Finis does broom design as his day job and could do faster if it matters."

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"Probably not the best use of him. Is there a way to reverse whatever brought you here, or prospects of developing one -"

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"We don't know what that was, just who. It must be developable since it was developed but that's also the case with the immortality thing and that's taking a long time."

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Nod. "The Enemy has probably already noticed the island. He has shapeshifting Maiar which he has in the past used to infiltrate Elf communities, and our check on that is to have people sharing their vision whenever they are outside the walls, which protect against that - the locals knew a simple magic for it -"

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"The house usually has wards against detection and we don't have a family expert to replace those."

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"I bet Huan would be willing to play guard dog for Feanorian grandchildren."

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"Huan?"

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"Tyelcormo's pet dog is a Maia."

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"And a Maia is some local magic thing? Theodore's pet dog is... a dog. My cat is a bit magic though."

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"Maiar are weaker versions of the Valar."

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"Okay."

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"Huan can at least let you know if there's trouble getting close. We can probably spare food for a dozen more people -"

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"...if that's actually a concern we can just duplicate food we already have, probably cover some extra people - we'll have to tell the house elves -"

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" - yes, that would be useful. We're not natively a farming people and Valinor had completely different growing conditions and the Enemy can come wreck the fields periodically."

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"We can't conjure food from nothing - some things, yes, not food - but the kitchens are stocked and we can multiply it."

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"How far can you multiply it -"

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"I think indefinitely? If nothing else I'm sure some gardening type spells can scale up for farms."

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"That would be very useful. The other resource constraints are stone and iron and something that burns longer than wood for the forges -"

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"You'd want coal. Though if your world has gods who recently made it you might not have any, and also we can probably just enchant them for you."

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Nod. 

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"We know some things about some non-magical technology you don't have but less than we would if we didn't bypass much of it by magic, unfortunately. Although Minor can tell you all about electricity, maybe it'll even turn out to be useful for something."

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"Minor has been telling me all about electricity."

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"I could see if Thingol would take you all in, then you'd have somewhere safe enough to have children."

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"Moving the house would be a production."

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"People who aren't set on having children could remain here, I take it it's only Michael and Rebecca at present -"

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"We still don't have any unicorns."

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"Then perhaps more and more of you will end up moving to Doriath. I really don't understand why you can't just - not -"

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"It's not outright infeasible just - really annoying and distracting and not ideal for the relationships involved -"

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"Well. Thingol's a bit prickly but he might agree and then they'd be very thoroughly safe."

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"Or maybe there's a unicorn hair substitute." Sigh.

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"You could try plucking Huan, he's magical. Not a unicorn, but I don't know what qualifies. Next question was whether you can duplicate magic objects -" he pulls a glowing stone off the shelf behind him -

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"...probably not, uh, is it delicate -"

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"No."

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Miranda taps it with her pine wand. No dice. "If it can be done it's complicated."

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"Too bad. A lot of our time and energy goes into enchanting armor, it might be worth trying to figure out how to do it if it's possible at all."

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"There's some protective enchantments that go on clothes."

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"A full set of armor has enchanted durability, light weight and flexibility, imperviousness, a boost to the endurance, energy, speed, reflexes and strength of the wearer, and protections against various kinds of magical attack or tampering."

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"...that's a bit much but none of it sounds infeasible unless our magic systems just won't cooperate at all and we can't protect against local stuff."

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"We have to do it all in one shot, so it's not possible to just get the minimum and then add things later as needed. I think Curufinwë had some tests in mind for magic system interactions -"

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"I have a list!"

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"But I still need you for translation, we should tell the rest of the story now."

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"If you don't want to repeat yourself I could get a dictation quill."

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"Ooooh. By all means get one of those."

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"Accio dictation quill and parchment -" There is a wait. Then she has them.

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"Convenient!" And he explains what Melkor did with his thousand years on parole, how he nearly managed to concoct a civil war out of nothing by impersonating people and spreading rumors, how eventually Fëanáro drew a sword on his brother and at that point the Valar intervened to exile him for a hundred twenty years -

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"Did he, uh, use the sword?"

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"No, he threatened him."

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"You sentence people to a hundred twenty years' exile for threatening each other?"

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" - it's only come up the once."

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"...maybe since our deadly weapons are also how we draw the curtains we have different norms about that but I think even Muggles don't have it like, uh, that."

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"The Valar could probably have handled it better. Anyway, we all went with him into exile - Melkor showed up and tried to offer to help us escape Valinor, he was behaving suspiciously, we told him to leave - he did - we wrote the Valar and told them to do something but they couldn't find him -"

And then the Darkening and Finwë's murder and the Valar demanding Fëanáro hand over the Silmarils and Fëanáro swearing to fight anybody who took them - "we swore with him" - and the departure from Tirion - "and there were two ways out of Valinor - to march across the northern ice, which was quite obviously going to kill us, or take boats, and oceanfaring boats weren't a specialty of ours - we asked the Teleri to borrow theirs. They said no. We asked for help making our own. They said no. We asked to be taught how boats worked. They said no. My father said we'd wait until they were asleep and then just take the boats - when they saw we were doing it they opened fire on us and then there was a fight and in the end ten thousand people were dead -"

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"Jesus. Uh, thank you for mentioning the oath thing before I attempted to summon the Silmarils."

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"You're family so we wouldn't have to war with you if you absconded with them - though please don't, we need them to win the war."

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"I am married to an alternate universe version of your brother, it is not obvious that counts!"

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He glances at Timothy. " - no, you're family, it's - obvious. To me."

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"...okay, what about Karen - she isn't going to steal them either, but -"

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"Karen and I are dating but not married."

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"And I expect if I say 'oh, don't marry in wartime' you will just make faces? I suppose if Karen absconds with the Silmarils then we would have a problem."

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"That one I do not in fact understand the logic."

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"For swearing to make it a really bad idea to steal the Silmarils, or why marriage makes you relevantly family but dating does not?"

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"No, for not marrying in wartime. I get why no kids."

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"Fairly likely to end up widowed, and as things presently stand that means separated forever."

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"...does it... usually... not mean that?"

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"Usually the Valar would reembody the dead. They've put us on notice they won't reembody any of us for a very long time, because they're angry about Alqualondë."

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"...we don't have such a courtesy available in the first place."

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"That seems like all the more reason not to wed in wartime, though I suppose if you're dead soon anyway..."

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"I mean, under the circumstances I'm not thinking 'I wish I'd held out for springtime so I could right now be not-married'."

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"But if he dies?"

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"...that... would... be bad? It would not be lots less bad if we weren't married yet."

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Elves look at each other confusedly. 

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"....what?"

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"There's some kind of confusion. I am not sure it really matters, though, as long as you're happy."

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"The last species difference turned out to matter."

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"This one seems to just be that you find being widowed less bad than we do."

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"I mean, the problem if Minor dies is that then he would be dead. In what way does widowing me rate, especially compared to him dying while we were engaged."

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"Oh, you mean that even if he died when you were engaged you wouldn't ever want anyone else?"

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"Uh, that is not what I mean. See this is what I mean about species differences - do you not have half-cousins, do Quendi not -"

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"We don't remarry, no. There was one exception in all of history and it went very badly and that is part of why we don't remarry."

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"...well, humans do so more often."

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"Huh. Okay. Well, if Thingol's all right with it then there'll even be a safe place to raise children and it'll all work out well, if not we'll have to come up with something else safe."

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"Still don't have a way to move the house. Who is this person?"

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"Runs the kingdom of Doriath. His wife is a Maia and Doriath is as safe against the Enemy as anything this side of the sea. We get attacked every few months."

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"Maybe some of us, then."

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"Might be worth it." And he has questions about their world and about house-elves and then they should check if Quendi can ride broomsticks.

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"- put your hand over it and say 'up'."

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"Up."

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The broom is unimpressed.

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This is inconvenient for scouting purposes but they'll live. He sends them back with some food to try duplicating.

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Elf food dupes fine.

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Oh good!! And Elf non-magical jewelry and glassware and books to bribe Thingol with? And can they repair these Elf tapestries?

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Not the magic tapestries. Other stuff sure.

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Curufin heads over to their house with them to run all the magic system interaction tests with Finis and Minor. He brings his son, Tyelperinquar, who looks like he's maybe sixteen.

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"Awwww. Nice to meet you. How old are you?"

       "Nice to meet you. Uh, four hundred seventy of your years."

" - wow."

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"I am told that your mom is not me."

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"No, she's not. It's nice to meet you, though. The King says you're great and great for Minor."

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"It's nice to meet you too! Should I expect to run into my opposite number -?"

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"Uh, she didn't want to fight Melkor. Thought we'd lose. So - no -"

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"...oh."

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Awkward shuffle. "I really like whoever came up with the idea for voltaic piles, though, I think you could use that to turn a mill - or if we'd come up with it when it was still dark, light an area - maybe even for the forges -"

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"Regrettably Alessandro Volta did not accompany us."

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"I hear the departure wasn't exactly planned."

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"Nope. Twins are still in school - hopefully they're all right -"

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"It would make sense to kill them too. And be very unwise not to."

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"The school is very protected but yeah once the summer holidays start if they're still there and we're still here I'd worry."

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"Are you thinking you might be back by then?"

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"I have no idea. Maybe we will find the Swedes who were disappeared the same way, lurking somewhere, halfway to a solution. Maybe we will live here for the rest of our lives and the twins will never know what happened."

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"We have no intention of letting you randomly die."

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"Thanks."

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And Maitimo suggests that he go meet his alt and teach him music magic - "maybe you'll compose faster when it's the both of you -" and so he rows across the lake and announces he's come to do that, if anyone is interested in learning magic music.

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Rebecca gives the kids to a house elf and turns up right away!

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"Uh, hi. Is something wrong?"

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"Do you not talk? You can sing it."

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"We had a - her - she died - I'm so sorry -"

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"- a me? Really?"

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Nod. "- she had a daughter -"

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"I had Catherine before Michael found me -"

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"Kat."

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"Where is she -"

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"Across the river - probably with the people who sing anaesthetic -"

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"- anaesthetic?"

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"This is a very very unhappy story from start to finish."

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"I'm trying to decide if I should offer to, to adopt her kid -"

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" - I think she'd like that. Kat is an orc - would that be a problem - and in pain all the time unless she's listening to the song -"

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"...well, we can learn the song - Michael was working on music recording anyway, it's more important if the music is itself magical probably - what else is there to know about her being an orc -"

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"Orcs are a species bred by the Enemy to be his, uh, foot soldiers and entertainment and experiment fodder and slaves. Beka - Beka's mother was captured while she was pregnant - Beka was born in Angband - they tortured her all the time so her children would be orcs -"

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Hug.

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Rebecca tucks herself in against Michael and shivers.

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"She had Kat. They took Kat away so she'd have more orcish influences. She decided to run away, she traded some favors. We - we shoot orcs, when they come here. All of them are sworn to obey the Enemy, and that means he can turn them into his agents at any time with no notice. We can't risk it. My brother was a prisoner in Angband. She escaped with him so we'd spare her and Kat. We kept them here. She was - happy, she liked the music -

 

- we told her that if she wanted to swear not to hurt us, she could go free - she did - if you swear two things that contradict each other your brain tears itself apart in unimaginable agony. We tried to avoid that by having a clause that - if she wanted to - she could surrender and then the oath would be void -

- the Enemy tracked her down. Made her aware that she'd sworn - I don't know what - something that contradicted - and she wasn't even lucid enough to surrender and get out from the contradiction -"

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"My parents took Catherine and sent me to a convent and Michael kidnapped her back for me."

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Lean. Weak smile.

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"Beka killed her mother. I assume her father was already dead."

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"I think mine are alive but they don't talk to us, or let my siblings."

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"D'you want to meet Catherine?"

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" - sure -"

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"Tippy -"

House-elf.

"Can you fetch us Catherine please?"

"Yes ma'am!" exclaims Tippy, and she vanishes and soon a little girl who looks like a mini Rebecca barrels into the room.

Catherine stops in her tracks when she sees Macalaurë. "Papa," she stage-whispers to Michael. "Papa he is too tall you have to shrink him."

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Weak giggle. "Hi, Catherine."

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"TOO TALL," says Catherine. "...pick me up."

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He does.

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"SO TALL!" exclaims Catherine, grabbing a braid for balance.

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He swats her hand away, looking appalled. "No!"

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"Ah!" exclaims Catherine. "Did not pull, did not!"

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"You can't touch, you can't touch, no one can touch. If I were to get married then my wife could touch. In private."

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"Put me down!" demands Catherine.

"Hair is a married thing?" says Rebecca, bewildered.

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He puts her down. "Yes, it is. Elves never wear it loose. Beka even braided the parts that were - long enough -"

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"Oh. Uh. I'm not going around like this solely because of my questionable propriety, so you know." Catherine runs over to her and Rebecca scoops her up.

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"Okay," he says, like he had definitely assumed that but hadn't especially minded. "Sorry, Catherine, I didn't mean to scare you."

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"Too tall," says Catherine. "Papa shrink him."

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"That would be very rude. He's here to teach us singing magic."

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"SINGING MAGIC!" croons Catherine, fortissimo.

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"You have to be quiet - well, you don't, but I have to be louder than you and the politest way is for you to be quiet."

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"You can stay for the singing magic but only if you don't interrupt. If you do Tippy will take you back and you'll have to wait with the babies."

SINGING MAGIC, mouths Catherine silently.

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He sings them an illusion of Beka and Kat.

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Kat looks a little like Catherine - not exactly, with the pronounced tusky underbite and sparse silver-brown brindle hair and little black eyes and gray skin, but if one is looking it's there. Beka looks mostly just like Rebecca apart from hair color and artwork and pointiness of ears.

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Beka feeding Kat, Beka playing with Kat, Beka working with Kat on her back, Beka laughing, Beka smiling, Beka flirting, Kat toddling, Kat walking quite well, Kat flopped on him listening to a song...

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"We can take her, right, Michael -"

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"Of course we can."

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"I love you."

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"I love you." 

 

Macalaurë twitches but keeps singing.

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"Mama," whispers Catherine, "who is that -"

"She's like me but - silver with pictures on," Rebecca whispers back.

"Who's the ugly kid."

"That's not nice."

"Who though."

"She's like you but she looks like that."

"I'm not ugly."

"Be nice."

"I'm not."

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"Would you like to meet her? I can go get her."

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"Yes. Please."

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He rows back across. He looks for Kat.

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Not with the anesthetists, actually. Building a mud castle.

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"Hey! You know the mystery island -"

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"Yeah. Is a real island? Not a singing island?"

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"It's real, not an illusion. It got here from another world. And in that world there's a - Mama and she has a Kat too."

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Gasp.

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"Want to get in the boat and go meet them?"

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"Boat! Boat boat boat boat."

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He picks her up and off they go.

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Kat leans way out of the boat to trail her fingers in the water.

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He keeps a hand on her to grab her if she topples. "The other world's Mama is married and has more kids, not just a Kat. But the oldest one is a Kat just like you. Well, an alien. But just like you."

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"Married Mama!"

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"Yeah! I think she's very happy."

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"Is her Kat name of Kat."

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"Catherine."

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"Okay." Splash splash.

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They reach the island. He carries her on in.

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"Yellow hair Mama," diagnoses Kat.

"Hi, Kat," says Rebecca. "This is Catherine."

"You're me but ugly!" declares Catherine.

"Well you're me but stupid!" retorts Kat.

"Let's have a yelling contest!" says Catherine.

"AAAAAAAAH!" replies Kat.

"AAAAAAAAH!" exclaims Catherine.

"Oh dear," murmurs Rebecca.

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Slight smile. (He translates everything in osanwë for everybody.)

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"If you two keep that up I will Silence you both."

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"BUT PAPA I'M WINNIIIIIIING," howls Catherine.

"ARE NOOOOOOOT!" says Kat.

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"Silencio."

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This stymies both girls. Catherine manages to communicate via emphatic gesturing that she wants Kat to chase her thataway. Off they tear.

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He cancels the spell. And beams at them as they vanish. "Four!" he says to Rebecca. "Well, we'll manage somehow."

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"My mother had eight! At least! The house elves help a lot."

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"You really shouldn't have children during the war."

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"Uh..."

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"It is very likely we will lose and if we do he will take them alive if he can and - we're figuring out the dying thing, you'll have forever to have more children after the war - the Enemy can and almost certainly will talk in their heads constantly trying to turn them against us - it's not safe -"

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"It's not that I'm attached to having any specific number, the problem is kind of before that."

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"Nelyo mentioned. I can't help you with that part but -"

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"There are potions for me, they're just not reversible -"

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"Like - nobody could even invent something later for it, or -"

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"All these different kinds of magic - maybe, who knows -"

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"I don't have to have any more, I guess -"

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"We don't have to decide tonight - let's learn some more magic songs -"

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He can do that.

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They're such nice songs.

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Yeah. Useful, too. He's been very inventive lately. 

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Rebecca attempts melodic dictation.

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He is happy to sing it as many times as are needed.

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And then she has it written down, with an approximation of the Quenya lyrics too.

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He has more songs! ...it is possible he doesn't sleep.

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Rebecca needs to take breaks to feed Jeremy. And also needs sleep.

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And also they should see what their sudden twin daughters have gotten up to.

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The twin daughters are climbing trees with an anxious house elf spotting them.

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Awwwww. "Hey, girls, it's way past your bedtime."

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"THERE IS NO BEDTIME," says Catherine.

"I SLEEP WHEN THE SUN IS ATTACKING ME," says Kat.

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"That doesn't seem very fair to the elves. You don't have to go to sleep but you do have to stop doing things that require supervision, okay?"

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"Night is for being outside!" insists Kat.

"I have not showed her all trees!" cries Catherine.

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"You can show her some trees tomorrow."

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"ALL TREES."

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"I can sing you to sleep. Want to see?"

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"You do that all the time," says Catherine.

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"I can do it with magic."

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"Singing magic?" asks Catherine.

"Yeah!" says Kat. "That's true."

"Oh." Catherine wobbles her way down the tree.

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He scoops her up. Would Kat also like to be scooped up.

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Yes.

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He scoops them both up and takes them to Catherine's room and duplicates Catherine's bed.

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"That one is mine," Catherine says, pointing at the preexisting bed.

Kat blinks at the bed. It is a bit more elaborately bed than she has usually slept in.

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"You can arrange it to your liking," he reassures her.

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"Gray," says Kat.

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Now her bedding is all gray.

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Kat flomps on it.

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And he sings them both a magic sleep song.

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They sleep. Rebecca goes and puts Joanna down for the night too. Jeremy is not on quite that regular a schedule yet.

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And then he finds his wife and cuddles her. "Wow."

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"Yeah, wow."

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"You okay?"

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"I'm all right but - Beka's not -"

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Shiver.

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Snuggle.

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"I am so glad I found you."

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"Oh me too, me too, I love you -"

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Snuggle. Macalaurë is still audible, in the distance, singing.

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...probably no sex tonight what with the sudden additional birth control urgency, right?

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Well. No pregnancy-might-result sex, at least.

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That will do for now.

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He sets Huan to protecting the grandkids. He finds his alt and describes how they're scouting and how it could be improved on a broomstick and sends him off hunting so they can have a celebratory feast. 

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And they plan how to win the war. "Can you teach us to throw off the Imperius -"

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"You, probably. Everyone else will be too obviously my family. Anyway, no one here knows it but me. - I don't think it'd work on a Vala."

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Nod. "We'll invent something. It might take decades but we were expecting it to take centuries."

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"What do you think are the odds of getting Thingol to take the kids -"

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"Not great. Maybe with astonishing amounts of bribery. He doesn't know about Alqualondë and the Enemy might tell him and then I doubt he'll speak to us at all. I deputized my cousins who are Thingol's cousins on the other side and he seems to like them all right, but -"

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"I wonder if they match, too."

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"Arafinwë, my father's younger half-brother, married Eärwen, daughter of Olwë, King of the Teleri -"

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"Alexander, Ellinor, Osvald."

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"Huh. And then Elu Thingol is Olwë's brother."

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" - don't remember. I was at the wedding but I was four."

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"And you, what, just forgot his name?"

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"I don't remember literally every person I've ever met!"

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"You poor thing! I should get Curufinwë to make you something for memory."

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"Do you remember literally everyone you ever met?"

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"I have big chunks of memory missing from Angband. But I'm pretty sure that I used to."

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"Huh. Well, let's see where we can get on Thingol."

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Miranda attempts to find out whether the house elves have any children and/or any war-relevant capabilities they can bust out.

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They take a lot of convincing to tell her but they do have children! Four of them! In anticipation of Michael and Rebecca needing at least three for their house and Minor and Miranda needing two and - "it was not looking like many of the young masters were going to be marrying decent families with elves, mistress -"

 

They can't think of war-relevant capabilities but can answer more specific questions than that.

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They should be advised that the Enemy has some unfortunate dispositions re: children. Can they do anything wardlike to the house to replace what was damaged or augment what's left? How far in general can their capabilities stretch past chores when the safety of the family is at stake?

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They can do transport! They would have less idea than the wizards where to start on the wards. They will warn their children about this concern but the children are magically bound to the Ways and couldn't harm them anyway!

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Karen is not a Way yet and there are also all those Quendi who should also not be harmed. How much transport can they do?

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They could take a handful of people with them each.

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How far, where to?

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They haven't tried leaving Britain before, let alone with passengers, but anywhere within that, probably.

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...they are currently not within Britain at all. Can they take people to Britain. From here.

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They try!

No!

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Can they get there alone with a message -?

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They try that too. Still no.

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Damn. Okay, they should give Karen some hair samples since she's attempting exotic potions substitutions, and be advised that they are not getting groceries any time in the foreseeable future and should stretch and duplicate what they've got as far as it will go so they can help feed the Quendi too, and if there are voices in their children's heads they should make sure they don't do what the voices say, and if they think of any way their powers could be useful wrt this list of strategic concerns they should let someone know immediately - could they distinguish real and illusion Ways -

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They think they could! 

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That could be useful, they can set up a test with Macalaurë who does illusion music.

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They'd be happy to. They give her hair samples for Karen's potion-replacement experimenting.

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House elf hair does not work for any of the essential potions Karen tries. Huan's hair works for some stuff. Can she try Quendi hair?

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No!

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"...has anyone explained to you Felix Felicis because maybe someone should do that -"

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"What about it -"

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"It's a luck potion, it's a really good luck potion, and I've seen my father make it and I think I can do it though it's terribly complicated. We can't get most of the ingredients new here, but we have enough of most of them stored. The ashwinder eggs are going to be out of date in a year and the potion takes six months, I need to find out if I can substitute for unicorn hair now."

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He winces. 


"Okay. I'll send you some."

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"It doesn't have to be fresh or anything, off a hairbrush would be fine, the unicorn hair usually gets found on bushes and stuff."

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"Elves don't usually let hair fall out, then you have to regrow it."

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"...okay. Still."

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"I'll do it." Sigh.

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"I'm sorry."

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"I am not upset with you."

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"I'm sorry anyway." Someone has told her about the hair thing and she has it in a simple plait. "- uh, I'm going to run out of hair potion and can't justify the ingredients to make more and it's going to kind of. Floof. Do I need to just copy Miranda at that point to be - polite -"

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"More decent than polite but yes probably."

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Sigh. "Okay."

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"Thank you for figuring all this out."

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"You're welcome."

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And after she has left he braces himself and curls up and pulls out some hair and shivers violently for twenty minutes, stuck with memories that might not even be real, and then packages it and has someone convey it across the lake.

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He gets an apologetic note the next week indicating that it works pretty well. She has enough for as much Felix as the ashwinder eggs will stretch to cover but it would also be good for other stuff. She doesn't need it pulled from the root; trimmings as short as a cubit would be okay.

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He asks Curufin what a cubit is. He asks Karen what other stuff.

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Uh, the birth control the young marrieds are currently desperately rationing, some healing stuff, memory potions, Wit-Sharpening if she can find substitutes for six other things. Veritaserum, if that would be useful for anything.

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He'll see if he can find anybody comfortable with more hair donations. He appreciates her work. 

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Macalaurë's latest project has been something that makes you think faster, and he solicits Michael's help, which Michael provides whenever he's not working on refining sound-recorders to a high enough fidelity to do magic music. 

 

 

Theodore comes back from scouting with his broomstick and a palantir and reports that there are Dwarves way east, who are not very friendly to Elves because Thingol's people apparently hunted them for sport but who liked Theodore fine after he immediately offered to go murder Thingol all politics be damned. They do not want Thingol murdered.  They are interested in trade relations with the Noldor and with Earth if possible. "They said that specifically, 'trade relations'?" says Aaron. 

"We had no languages in common and they're not telepaths, but 'trade' is a word they were very insistent on getting across, yeah."

Off Aaron flies. 

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Miranda may or may not have picked apart the Muggle-Repelling Charm enough to try developing an Orc-Repelling Charm or, more ambitiously, a Maia-Repelling Charm, but this would be trouble for the orcs and the Maia who live with the Quendi.

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"That also means we can test it, though. Go for it."

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"Even given the opportunity cost -?"

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"I don't know, what's the opportunity cost look like - if we had them we could place them on Angband from broomsticks, see, cause a distraction when we needed one especially -"

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"I've never thought about applying witchcraft to warfare with evil gods before showing up here, I'm sure I'm missing a dozen possibilities. I'll work on this one."

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Curufin thinks he might have an angle on stopping humans from dying but it'll be twenty or thirty years before it's done and he won't know if it worked until then.

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" - so a concern there is that by then it might be too late to have kids, if it doesn't work and the Philosopher's Stone doesn't work and you don't have a next generation of wizards -"

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"Is that feasible anyway, they'd all be cousins. Unless the species can interbreed, I suppose - then you could find orcs -"

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"Catherine's not related to anybody except Joanna and Jeremy. It is not a very good starting population, granted. If we were optimizing very hard for this it would be about time to abandon monogamy just to get everything mixed up as much as possible, but..."

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"It sounds like there are at least some prospects of ending the war in our lifetimes. In which case I am still saddened at the thought that humans and wizardry will go extinct in this world but I don't think it's worth trying to avert it."

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Nod. "I hope the kids aren't too lonesome."

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"If the war's over maybe they can find Quendi for company, if not for starting families."

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"If."

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They come up with a tentative plan to very thoroughly hide a small workspace on the south continent for Finis and Curufinwë and Minor - "and Miranda," says Minor, "if it's going to take months let alone years I am not going without her" - and Accio the Silmarils and spirit them away there where they can be hopefully figured out for use. 

 

They scout for sites. 

 

Elu Thingol hems and haws on taking in humans.

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Carefully rationed birth control potions run out.

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"Argh."

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Kiss. Sigh. "....we could've gotten married three months sooner."

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"You in no respect saw this coming."

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"Weeeeeeelll I - anticipated that something in the class of 'things that might make us wish we'd gotten married three months sooner' might happen?"

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"You did not see this coming, no points. ...but yes, I wish we had gone for the summer option."

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Minor kisses her passionately and then remembers that he probably should not do that.

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Wurble.

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Elu Thingol would like to meet these humans on whose behalf he is being asked to extend his kingdom's protection.

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"And the house-elves, has anyone told him he'll have to let the house-elves in too or it's not really feasible to go -"

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"Maybe pick one battle at a time?"

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"- and Kat."

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" - yes. I don't know how they'll take that - they might actually know Kat's grandparents -"

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"Depending on how long the visit is supposed to be I'm not even sure we should leave her behind for that long."

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"A few days, plus the travel time. Up to you - but do prepare to be turned right around at the border -"

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"...can't leave Jeremy, but I guess if we leave Joanna and Catherine it won't upset her too much - if I just wear Jeremy in a sling we can broomstick there behind Michael."

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"That might be a good way to start. And she'd probably also find it upsetting to be singled out and refused entry."

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"There would be so much screaming. They know what an orc is, we can just explain her and if they won't have her then we don't move there."

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Nod. "Good skill."

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"Thanks."

And a broomstick and a sling and a baby and two parents go to Doriath.

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Elves meet them at the border. They would like them to swear not to harm anyone inside Doriath's borders.

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"Humans don't work that way."

       "Nonetheless."

"I swear not to start any fights within Doriath's borders."

      "That's not the phrasing -"

"If someone attempts to harm my wife and the mother of my children, or our newborn son, you can bet I will stop them."

      "Then you will die."

"I have lots of nonlethal stopping options, pointy-ears, calm down."

      " - demonstrate -"

"Delighted," Michael says, "Stupefy."

 

A few minutes later, "Enervate."

       "The Queen wants to see you."

"Oh, so we're all settled on the swearing?"

       "Do not test the limits of our generosity."

"If your generosity were less limited then that would be easier," Michael mutters, but in English. 

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Rebecca is subdued and stands a little behind Michael, cradling the baby. He squirms.

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They're shown into Doriath. It's outrageously pretty. The footpaths through the trees are full of flowers in two dozen different colors, it's quiet and serene, there's a brook babbling somewhere just outside earshot, and birds sing from the trees. The trees get taller and more and more light filters through their branches until at last they reach a grand clearing full of tall flowers, and behind it a waterfall and a wide gate built into a cave. 

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Rebecca's footsteps trail marigolds. She picks one and puts it in her politely braided hair.

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They are led into the cave. It's lit, by virtue of the walls glowing in their intricate silver patterning to make them look like trees. The ground is more densely padded with flowers. The sound of a babbling brook is replaced with that of a sizable river.

The Elves are all singing.

 

And eventually they are led into a room larger even than Hogwarts, at the edge of which sit two thrones. 

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Wow.

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Hello, Melian says. Welcome to Doriath, children. Your magic is like nothing I have witnessed in this world.

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"We, ah, seem to be from a neighboring one."

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And this one is no place for children, not outside Doriath. But we cannot compromise the safety of Doriath. Would we compromise it in inviting you here?

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"No. We have four children and all we want is a space where they can grow up in safety."

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Nod, nod.

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"One of our children was born in Angband. Her grandmother was captured while pregnant, and her mother escaped with her before she learned to talk. Her mother is dead, but she is well and happy and the Enemy has no sway over her."

      Thingol frowns. "She's an orc?"

"Yes."

      "Has to swear not to harm anybody."

" - I think that should be okay."

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"- I'd want to - know more about what that would do, if it would mean people could hurt her or if it would do weird things if people lied to her about what harmed them -"

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"No one will do her violence in Doriath."

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"She might not want to live here forever. We might find a way to go home, or might want to live with the rest of our family if the war ends -"

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"Oh, she need only swear not to harm anyone here."

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"That's probably fine - I'd just want to ask more people."

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"What do you intend to do for Doriath while you reside here."

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"My magic's very useful."

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I would like to see another demonstration.

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He levitates a flower.

 

He patiently answers questions.

 

They are granted tentative permission to live in Doriath until this causes trouble and provided the orc swear not to harm anyone within Doriath's borders and not to send information to the Enemy.

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Kat's response to this suggestion even before Rebecca has double checked enough to know whether to ask for it is "NO NO NO NEVER EVER NO."

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" - yeah, that's exactly what we told her to say." Sigh.

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"Kat sweetheart -"

"YOU'RE NOT MY REAL MAMA."

"- I know, but -"

"NO."

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"I think your Mama would be okay with this, she wants you to be safe."

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"IS NOT SAFE NO NO NO NO NO NO NO."

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Sigh.

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"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH," she adds for good measure.

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"We'll keep 'em safe here somehow."

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"Thank you." Sigh. "At least we know she won't swear things even if very convincingly asked."

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"Yeah."

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Aaron comes back with the news that Dwarves are great and that an 1800 industry overview has made him the richest Dwarf. ("You're not a Dwarf." "Am too, I mentioned wishing I were and they said they could adopt me.") 

Maitimo finds someone willing to cut off a chunk of hair for Karen's potion purposes. They find a site for secret Silmaril work in a hidden cave system on the southern continent with a Maia of the cave system who has no opinions on their presence there but has an opinion that Melkor's presence there would be unwelcome. ("Not clear how much she can do about it, but...")

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Miranda packs, including two strands of the supply of hair, Karen's substitution instructions, and the other, not so scarce ingredients for the birth control potion.

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"I think whoever's going to summon the Silmarils should take Felix and then do it."

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"Just a sip or enough to cover the whole journey?"

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"How much do we have -"

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"It's not done yet, it takes six months. Unless you have leftovers from what you bought. But the whole batch is a day, I think."

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"Then we should save some for the actual deployment. If it'll keep that long - Curufinwë thinks it will be years -"

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"You're the one who knows things about potion shelf life."

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"Substitutions probably make it less stable, but ordinary Felix would tolerate a decade just fine if stored properly."

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"It would be fairly awful to find it had gone off, how much less -"

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"Not by more than half but that could be enough to give you trouble. - maybe not if Macalaurë gets his think-faster song working."

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"I've been thinking I should cast it in case it happens they need to bust through a wall on their way out - chimera wand summoning spells'll do that, at least if the wall is not especially durable."

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"I vaguely expect the walls of Angband to be durable."

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"Yes, but overpowering the cast won't hurt."

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Nod. "Maybe just a sip, get a feel for whether to cast it at all, and save the rest for when we might need it more."

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"Can it tell you to drink more of it? If you haven't gone overboard and dosed too high in the first place, I mean."

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"I think so. It's uncanny. If it were cheaper and didn't have the long term side effects I'd take it all the time and take over the world inside three months."

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"Then starting with a sip makes excellent sense. Maybe even just a drop."

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"Good luck."

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"Potion's a few months out, but thank you."

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- he reports over the palantir that if you go still further east there are humans.

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What the fuck.

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Yup! Just - wandering. They don't seem to have invented agriculture yet. Or clothes. Definitely not bathing. "Dunno if they're all Muggles."

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"...Cast a Muggle-repelling charm, see if they scatter?"

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"Muggles," he confirms a bit later.

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"I guess that's sort of good, means the Enemy doesn't have any wizards."

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"Yeah. Also the population problem ceases to be one, if we were still thinking about that. - these people have kids who are under three but no people between three and adulthood. And no elderly people."

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"...what, did God just make enough grownups all at once -"

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"If so he has really choice timing, he could've waited until after the war."

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"I was being facetious mostly, I'm pretty sure the Valar and Eru are a different thing, there's like, no Jesus."

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"What's Jesus?"

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"Wow. Uh, Jesus was the son of God? You use the same years and everything, come on."

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"I dropped out of school. God has kids?"

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"Just the one. I mean except in the sense that everybody is spiritually children of God and stuff."

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"Anyway these sure are some bona fide stone age humans and 'God' is as good a guess as anything for why they're here should I take them home or something."

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"How many are there -"

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"Lots? More than a thousand less than a hundred thousand? I haven't found them all yet."

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"I'm not sure we can absorb that many."

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"Yeah. They do seem to be doing okay on their own. - oooh, these ones invented walls. Good job humans."

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"...before agriculture?"

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"Looks like it."

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"That doesn't sound right."

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He angles the palantir so she can see little stone buildings.

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"Those look pretty post-agriculture to me."

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He tries another Muggle-repelling charm. "Still Muggles."

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"Muggles do agriculture!"

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"Yeah, I was thinking if they were wizards they might've skipped it. Maybe Dwarves built the buildings and abandoned them or something."

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"Aaron, do these look Dwarfy -"

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Aaron does not think so.

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"Could we in fact absorb them - if they're Muggles they're not more valuable than unsworn orcs, I guess they couldn't be irretrievably compromised but they could be pretty compromised -"

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"Could ask the Dwarves to take them in."

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"Might be good."

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Aaron flies off to ask about that. 

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"If this world's God isn't even your God he won't object to the potions," Michael says to his wife that night.

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"...I'm not an Eru-ist though I'm a Catholic."

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"I could - I just don't want to definitely never again -"

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"There are no priests around at all so I am kind of not - going to confession tomorrow anyway - I - ugh -" She plops her face on his chest.

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Chaste kiss on the forehead. "Yeah."

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"If you really want me to take it -"

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"I don't want you to feel like you're - betraying yourself - but I'm not going to - they're right that this isn't a good world to bring kids into -"

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"The idea is that God decides that. It does sort of seem like He might be biased in favor."

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"Little bit." 

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He snuggles up beside her and goes to sleep.

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Snuggle. Sleep. Feeding Jeremy four times in the night.

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Dwarves will consider how much money they'd want for housing it-looks-like-around-twenty-thousand humans. It'll probably be a reasonable number! Getting humans caught up with modern technology will make them better trade partners. Doriath is thanked for offering their hospitality but the baby orc absolutely refuses to swear any oaths, quite sensibly of her really. The Noldor plan a dozen distractions and evacuations and responses for the aftermath of stealing back the Silmarils. 

"It might just not work," Timothy warns his alt.

"Yes, I realize that. I have seen what being underprepared costs; indulge me."

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The Felix is almost done. It has not exploded, melted its cauldron, turned brown, displayed sluggish droplet leaping, or curdled.

Miranda lays out Cricket's unabridged phrasebook and gets herself a bunch of numbered tokens - "we keep talking about it like it's a person, if it might not be able to help me cast it might as well have a chance to say something -"

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"The Felix? Oh, good idea."

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Miranda bats the cards for "I" "am" "smart".

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"I know!" Kiss.

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Giggle.

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And in their work on magic system interactions they find that non-wizards can take an Unbreakable Vow with a wizard doing the third-party binding and that you can word a vow so that it's not an oath. "- this would be useful as a suicide trigger. 'I vow never to reach the considered opinion that I am better off dead -' and then -"

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" - yes," he says, a little choked, "yes -" and then he recovers himself and says "if you think it's safe and a good use of the wizard who'd have to help -"

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"Minor's mother knows it and she's not on anything more urgent. - are you okay?"

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"Of course I'm okay. Let's do that."

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...probably a good idea for all the wizards to do it too.

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Yeah.

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It's not a very cheering event but she'll do it anyway.

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"Do you think the kids -"

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"...what happens if they don't understand it -"

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"I don't know. Probably safer not to."

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"Yeah, at least for now."

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But the adults go for it.

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Suicide is a sin but having knives in the house isn't so this is probably fine!

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Kiss. "I want you and the kids to be safe. Forever."

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"I love you." ...sigh. "If you really want me to take the potion -"

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- headshake. "I want you to feel good about whatever you decide to do. But I'm not going to risk it in the meantime - we know what will happen, it already did twice -"

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"Mrrrg."

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 - raised eyebrow. "Is there something about, uh, listening to your husband making it not a sin to do things?"

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"...not as such, just generally husbands being the head of the family, it'd be sort of a judgment call?"

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Macalaurë?

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Uh, yes?

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How well did you know Beka -

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- ah. 

 

Not intimately. 

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Oh, okay. 

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Why? 

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I'm trying to figure out if I'd be being a controlling dick to my wife or making her happy. 

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Oh. Making her happy.

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"I want you to take it," he says to Rebecca. 

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Kiss. "Okay! - where is it -"

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Giggle. "Storerooms, I think, unless Miranda has squirrelled it all away."

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She kisses him and nips off. Comes back with a bottle to make sure it's the right one.

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It is!

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Quaff!

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And he scoops her off her feet and has it happens really really missed her.

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It has been mutual!!!!!!

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Oh good. Oh so good.

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...Jeremy interrupts them. But then Jeremy can go back to his favorite activity, Being Paced Up And Down The Hall By A House Elf. And his parents can go back to their favorite activity.

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Guaranteed not to produce more Jeremies until the world is safe for them!

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Rebecca is sooooo bad at being a Catholic and had better not die before she gets to a priest but being bad at Catholicism is sooooo fun.

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Rebecca had better not die ever and if she does and God judges her Michael will get his brothers to kill him after Melkor. He doesn't say this. Rebecca might find it upsetting.

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But right now she is a ~happy Rebecca~.

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With a happy happy husband!

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Yaaaaaaaaay~

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Karen finishes the Felix. (She has run out of hair potion and has her hair in Miranda-y braids, which she doesn't like at all.) The Felix is golden and lovely. Drops of it breach and splash down like little dolphins.

She eyedroppers out the tiniest possible amount for Miranda.

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Miranda takes it. The phrasebook is all laid out but Felix is drawn instead to the alphabet in the way back that Cricket still doesn't have the hang of. Taptaptaptap -

Draw him out.

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"Is it - sentient? Also - how -"

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"...if I had to make a bet," says Miranda as it wears off, "I'd say more like a portrait or a ghost."

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Nod. "Well. Draw Melkor and his presumed crown of magic jewelry out from Angband."

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"I can take another drop if we need more detailed tactical instructions."

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"Let's see what we can come up with unaided."

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Nod. "That is a really interesting sort of a high."

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"Isn't it? Wouldn't it be fun to take over the world on Felix?"

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"Don't tempt me."

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"Maybe if we're really careful we can save enough to eventually ask it how to get home." And he asks everybody for ideas on drawing Melkor out.

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"I assume this is not the sort of case where you want to literally challenge him to a duel."

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"That would be fun! Until you died. But I don't see why he'd even take us up on it instead of killing us remotely."

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"Attack Angband somehow - you could Imperius some orcs -"

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"I doubt that overrides orders and I bet they have orders not to attack him."

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"It'd be kind of a glaring omission if they didn't. ...How hard would it be to introduce a physical object to the place - plant it on an orc -"

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"That's probably doable even without Imperiusing one and trivial with - what kind of physical object gets him to leave -"

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"I'm not sure exactly. One of the music transmitters could issue some kind of challenge without actually physically going somewhere and being all 'hey duel me'?"

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"Or play the anaesthetic song, once I get them nice enough, that might be disruptive enough that a challenge could get his attention -"

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"Or that thing Gringotts uses for security, that makes things double when they're touched -"

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"Those things'll crush people in a room all right but I don't think they'd get past a heavy-duty fortress door. Maybe you could - flood the place -"

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"I don't think you can make water self-duplicating."

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"You can't, but you can plumb it - we don't use Muggle style plumbing, we just have a reservoir the house elves refill - drop a pipe-end in the ocean -"

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"Ooooh. - might need the Angband end to expand somehow, otherwise it'd just be a leak they could plug quickly or use their magic on -"

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"- like how those expansible trunks work? I can do those."

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"And I could have an orc put it somewhere where it wouldn't be noticed instantly - we should maybe consult Felix if you can spare another drop -"

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"The batch isn't anywhere near accounted for yet, just opportunity cost is all."

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"I think Melkor's top priority."

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"That's not in question, what might be is if we go to Felix with this plan as context or with something else as context, it only had time for a few words given one drop."

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"Spend an hour seeing if we come up with anything better first?"

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"Yeah. And see if the Quendi have any ideas."

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The Quendi observe that Ulmo should probably be consulted on schemes to drain the ocean into Angband.

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...this is not unreasonable. How do you consult Ulmo. Should he be sent an owl.

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No, you go to the ocean and sing to him. He sometimes takes a while to answer.

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How long a while.

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Well, used to be within weeks but that was when they hadn't Kinslayed his favorites.

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Gosh. Uh. They can probably think up a non-ocean-related plan if Ulmo feels like requiring a year's worth of concert before deigning to reply.

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"I mean, if this is the best plan, waiting a year for it's probably worth it."

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"Uh."

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"Does the Felix expire?"

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"Not in one year. Maybe in three to five."

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"What's the next-best plan?"

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"We didn't have one specifically in mind, just liked this one enough to run it by you. Whether waiting a year for the best plan is a good idea depends substantially on how much it is best by."

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"I suppose if lots depends on the potion, yes."

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"I think the principle holds in general, but yes, the potion is also in temporally limited supply. We could attempt to create and harvest eggs from an Ashwinder but that is normally best left to trained professionals for values of 'best' meaning 'amateurs set absolutely everything on fire trying that' and even then we'd still need six more months and a substitute for the - anyway."

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"Maybe once the engineers aren't tied up with immortality and Silmaril-weaponizing they can figure out a way back to your world."

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"That'd be nice. Twins'll be graduated soon."

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"If they make it through the summer. Our cousins will probably look after them."

Finis makes a face.

"Fredrick knows everything. Don't know what he'll be able to do with it, but he knows."

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"Why does Fredrick know everything?"

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"I thought it would be a good idea for someone less traceable to me to. I think I was right."

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"Good plan."

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"Maybe they'll kill each other," says Finis. Timothy twitches just slightly if you're looking really closely.

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"...who, Fredrick and the twins -"

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"I think he means Fredrick and whoever sent us here."

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"James and Samuel'll be all right, they're clever," Finis says, nodding.

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...Karen goes and hugs Timothy. It is completely unsuspicious for her to do that, right.

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Yeah. They're dating. Hug.

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"...kind of an appalling thing to say, though," Miranda mutters, after they have dispersed to respectively brainstorm further and send somebody Ulmo might still like to sing at the ocean.

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"Mmm?"

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"- about Nameless Perpetrator taking down Fredrick."

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"Oh, yeah.

 

 

I understand it but I'm not sure I know how to explain it - it's not about Fredrick at all, and my father doesn't wish him ill in the slightest. It's -

 - Timothy's close to Fredrick, really close, not like brothers but like - he's an extension of himself? This is much easier to pick up on than articulate. Anyway Timothy's always - affecting that Fredrick is merely useful while actually holding him very very dear and lying to all of our faces about it and it's annoying and the thing Father does is - say things that cut at that divide between 'useful' and 'treasured', just because it's there under the surface - the gap between what Timothy's saying and what he means, I mean - it's right there so it's hard not to pick at it. And Timothy just - ignores him - I keep expecting he'll notice he could make there be nothing to pick at, say 'don't, Father, I care about him', drop the - the whatever it is. But he won't."

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"...still kinda mean."

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"I mean, yeah. But not randomly."

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"I did not think he was being randomly mean and finding that the precision level is not 'attack your half-cousins at every opportunity' but rather 'snipe at Timothy for liking one of them' does not improve my assessment much."

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"That's not what I said. It's - pick at a gap, because it's there and it's hard not to pick at it once you notice it."

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Sigh.

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He sends petitioners to go talk with Ulmo.

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Backup plans include: challenge him by owl. (Magical owls are a slightly limited resource unless Tyelcormo can convince random wild ones to take up the occupation.) Attempt remote Floo hookup, ???, profit.

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Seems worth waiting for Ulmo, probably. Are remote floo hookups even possible?

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"I could maybe figure it out but I might need to know exactly where to find the fireplace."

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"I don't know if Angband has a fireplace in a conventional sense. Maybe if the word can be interpreted flexibly enough."

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"Any fire with a chimney should do. Long shot though. I hope Ulmo doesn't keep us waiting."

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"He didn't sink the boats when we crossed, that's something."

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"I guess."

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"I might have low standards." Sigh. "How's designing the expanding bit to smuggle into Angband going -"

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"That part's fine, although since it needs to be really hard to shrink again afterwards the experimental results are inconvenient to clean up."

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"The Valar can probably just cancel your magic, so it'd be best to place it somewhere he won't notice it for a while or be sure what exactly to cancel. Or, even better, if it were large to start with and made small by magic -"

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"Yeah, I can do it that way, we just have less control over when exactly it opens up."

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"Harder to cancel remotely?"

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"Yeah, expanding it remotely you just want a Protean-style pairing. Can't cancel things that way."

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"I'll trust you on the magic."

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"Tops in Charms every year." And she goes back to work.

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" - okay somebody's fucking with the humans. Having Dwarves adopt them probably still works but someone is definitely fucking with the humans."

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"What do you mean?"

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"They have a religion. The religion is Melkor-worship."

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"Well fuck."

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"I knew something was up with the preagricultural walls."

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"Temples. To Melkor. Demons attack in the night but they leave you alone if you pray to Melkor."

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"What are the demons and can I put them in potions.'

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"I haven't seen any."

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Sigh.

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"It's probably a terrible idea to pick a fight with Melkor-associated demons alone and we don't want to tip him off about magic yet at all."

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"Will the Dwarves still be willing to adopt them under these conditions?"

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"Aaron's not on right now and I continue not to be able to speak any relevant languages."

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"Just thinking aloud." She makes a note to ask Aaron next time he's on his palantir.

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"Anything I should do?"

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"See if you can get a look at the demons."

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"I am not sure that's safe without making it clear to the Enemy we've got magic, if the demons work for the Enemy."

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"Only if it's safe, obviously."

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"I'll try."

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Dwarves are happy to accommodate Melkor-worship if it doesn't take any lawbreaking forms.

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...okay, then.

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"At least they presumably can't end up sworn to things."

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"Presumably, yeah."

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"I guess maybe that's worth double-checking once my father or Minor think they have enough of a grasp on the language."

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"Well, that won't be long at all."

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"It shouldn't be." 

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The people his father left to die have been shying away from meeting the Additional Damned Fëanorians, but it'd be useful for them to get over that. He asks Miranda if she can do anything about nerve damage from frostbite.

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What? Yes! How long have people been having nerve damage from frostbite without telling her?!

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Years. There are a lot of them, it might not be the best use of her time, but it'd be much appreciated.

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Well she can at least do some and teach everybody else in case they have a spare moment and a frostbitten Quendi to hand later.

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Frostbitten Quendi appreciate it. 

 

 

 

It is kind of horrible frostbite. Muggles would have likely lost the hand.

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"Nervi calidum."

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"Thank you."

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"You're the Quendi Fredrick, right - I know him but not well enough to be positive -"

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"I am! Is Minor friendly with Fredrick? I, uh, wouldn't have expected him to be."

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"Minor is not friendly with Fredrick, no, but I think that is stupid. I know Zachariah better, of people Minor is not friendly with; he was my year and House in school, Fredrick I encountered just in passing."

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"Findaráto's in Doriath - he's related to Elu and they get along splendidly, it's the best we're going to get on that front."

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"Makes sense."

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"Fredrick was elsewhere when -"

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"Yeah."

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"What do you know about the person who did it, is she likely to track down loose ends?"

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"I don't know much of anything. Timothy met her but didn't get her name, which might give you an idea of how little he met her."

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Giggle. "Yes, rather."

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"She was working through an Imperiused subject, for reasons and to a degree which indicates most of the information we have is about his style, not hers. So I don't know, I'm sorry."

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"Don't apologize to me, I'm sure worrying about people left at home is much harder on all of you. And without any meaningful prospects of getting back it's probably not the most constructive thing to wonder anyway." Sigh. 

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"Well, I don't know, if there were more of me and some of them might be in peril I'd feel entitled to fret about that."

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"There's more to fret about than I've really time left over for fretting. Were there other interrupted projects and so forth -"

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"Besides Finis's immortality project nothing far-reaching - Karen won't be filling wand orders, Michael's going to be missing his scheduled concert broadcasts, that sort of thing, but I didn't even have a day job, I was reading up on Muggle diseases since they get a lot of stuff we don't and my niche was going to be making house calls to people the magic hospital wouldn't take - like Rebecca."

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"And Timothy's day job was the thing that caused all the trouble?"

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"Kinda, yeah."

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"I am very glad you landed here."

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"I wish we'd done so in a more controlled fashion but it seems probably net good yeah. How's your hand -"

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"Appears to be all better! I'll send some more people your way."

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"Great. Lemme know if it twinges or anything."

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"I think I'd notice if there were still underlying damage, but will do."

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"- oh right that thing. That must be so handy."

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"It definitely saves us a lot of pain. The poor humans out East must be having a very hard time even without the Enemy toying with them."

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"Humanity: not a picnic. Especially for Muggles."

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He sends more injured people her way!

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She fixes their frostbite!

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So, Timothy says to Findekáno once he has osanwë figured out around his Occlumency, what do you think he'll do -

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Kill her. Is that a problem?

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Not as long as he stays safe.

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I don't think he'll take risks that aren't necessary to kill her?

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I want him to be happy.

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Then you should possibly take more care with your own life.

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Sorry. 

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I'm not him.

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Well, it's not looking likely I'll get to see him to apologize, so -

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I'm sorry. 

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Not really the most important thing. - will he be okay -

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He'll cope better than you would, actually. 

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- well, that's something. I don't think I'm coping badly. 

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When Maitimo thought he'd gotten me killed by not being good enough at what he does he promptly ran off to parley with Angband. It wasn't - guilt - but it was a deficit of good judgment I would have corrected.

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You sound just like him.

 

 

The day we - there was a dance and I took a girl and she really liked me and I was so disconcerted by it and she wouldn't stop kissing me and so I Stunned her and calmed down and then tried to think what to do and Fredrick walked in and - corrected deficits of good judgment - and -

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It took me two hundred years to bring Maitimo around.

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Good god.

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Quiet laughter. He was so scared -

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I was scared! And it took me less than an hour - Quendi -

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Hey, hey, that was Maitimo, no dodging that with the species difference. I think now he wishes we'd had longer. 

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Don't you have forever? Possibly unless you die and offend the god of the dead?

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Oh, this kind of arrangement offends the god of the dead. And survivors of Angband don't typically - I mean, he'd fake it if I wanted, but - 

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- he'll get over it, though, right - I'm twitchy about a thing or two but it gets easier with time -

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I am very sure he will. 

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Then - 

 

- oh. In two hundred years?

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It certainly won't be sooner.

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I suppose then I really can't meaningfully ask you how long it'll take Fredrick to be all right -

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Depends very much on what you mean by all right, anyway.

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Do you think you can really love someone if it's all switched up -

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Yes.

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Doesn't feel much like a potion.

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Hmmm?

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- oh, that was my plan before I met him, we have love potions, I was going to marry a girl and be fine.

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That sounds like a terrible plan.

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I'm not claiming it was perfect.

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It was dumb. 

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You don't have any context -

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Did Fredrick disagree with me?

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Is there a way to stomp away from an osanwë conversation in a huff -

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Nope! Am I hurting your feelings?

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Just - just making me miss him. And we're never - we're never ever -

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I'm so sorry. 

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Quendi usually sing.

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I can't sing.

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If it would help I could sing.

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Sure, okay, sing all about it. Does it - usually help -

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Yeah. Everybody else will sing too, even if they don't know what you're singing about. It - it's the only thing about it that can be shared -

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He nods.

 

 

He goes outside and practices magic by the lake and listens to the Quendi singing.

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After two months Ulmo agrees to a plan to drown Angband, though he'd like them to tell him where they're dropping the ocean end so he can make sure it doesn't damage any critical ecosystems.

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There's probably no reason to drop it in a different place than where he was first sung to.

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"Well, deeper would mean much higher water pressure."

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"I mean, weighted and a mile out, sure, but not far from there."

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"Or however many miles for it to get deep, who knows how oceans work on flat worlds. But I agree there's no reason to pick somewhere Ulmo might find objections to."

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"Possibly he should be consulted on oceanography if that will not take another forever."

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Will that take another forever?

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No, they're still talking to him. He can recommend somewhere deep.

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Good.

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Ulmo suggests a location easily accessible by broomstick from where they met him but farther out to sea.

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And Miranda preps the ocean end and goes out and drops it, plus a rock.

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They ended up deciding it was safer to Imperius an orc than try to lure them into doing what they wanted. He levitates the other end, the size of a necklace, into place in front of a scouting party and Imperiuses the orc who picks it up. The spell won't last if he sleeps but Macalaurë has a song for that, at least for a couple days' worth.

 

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And the orc goes home.

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And the orc should head down to some part of the vast fortress which is very far from Melkor and lay the necklace down in the middle of a large dining hall there (Timothy has Felix pick the location) and keep thoughts private aside from bouncing this to an Elf who is Disillusioned on a broomstick eight miles directly above Angband -

 

- "set -"

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"Five. Four. Three. Two. One -"

The sea opens into the fortress.

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Orcs eating in the dining hall are immediately submerged under hundreds of thousands of cubic cubits of fast-moving freezing water. 

 

 

Shortly thereafter Felix thinks Miranda should summon the Silmarils.

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Chimera wand.

"Accio Silmarils!"

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There's a long wait. 

 

Then -

 

Gosh they're pretty!! So aggressively pretty!! Still embedded in Morgoth's crown, looks like.

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She catches them. The crown is pretty heavy; she is not knocked off her feet by the grace of Felix.

She delivers them to her husband's alt.

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"Thank you," he says. "Can you teleport us to the cave now -"

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"Takes a few hops." Hop hop hop hop here they are.

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With Minor and Finis. All three of them start talking over each other immediately. 

 

 

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Elsewhere enormous clouds of poisonous smoke are issuing from the puddle that was previously Angband (and which has stopped growing; Melkor must have figured out how to disable it.)

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...Bubble-head charms, anyone?

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Can they do them for everyone?

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Probably not.

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All right, kids and injured people.

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That they can do. Wandwave, wandwave, wandwave...

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And everyone else can hold a wet cloth over their mouth and nose and try to filter out the poison and scuttle around guarding the building where Miranda Disapparated with the Silmarils.

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Once the kids and injured are covered they can do more people.

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They can set it up all orderly. 

 

And they can wait.

 

There is not immediately any other form of retaliation.

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Valar are slow.

"So what do you need to make these things do more than be - really good lamps."

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"Figure out what my father was doing, and then how to do it, and then write the instructions to the Silmarils - and figure out the interactions between them, that's another part I don't know much about - I wish my father weren't dead, then this would be a three-year project -"

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"You don't know what he was doing because -"

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"This was one of those projects where he was struck with inspiration and locked himself in his workshop for nearly two Years and explained himself at all only once he was done, and not in detail. - he used to read Tyelperinquar his notes at night but Tyelperinquar was three. And the notes were destroyed when Melkor attacked."

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"But Tyelperinquar has been physically in a room with the notes."

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"Uh, yes, when he was Joanna-sized."

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"Doesn't matter. Finis do you own a Pensieve already or do we need to learn to make one -"

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"No, we own one - we can see the notes," he says to Curufinwë - "we just need him to share the memories so other people can review them -"

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"A Pensieve lets you walk around in a memory, inspect stuff even if you don't recall it all clearly," Miranda explains.

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" - that'd do it, yes. We still won't be done in three years, I'm sure there're more to it, but that'll shave ten off -"

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"Okay, what slows down the other steps?"

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"Magical engineering is just slow. If I knew exactly what to write to the Silmarils it'd be two years just to do that - maybe one if Macalaurë gets his sleep-skipping and perception-speeding songs refined any -"

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"Can you be more specific than 'just slow' -"

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"You come up with the instructions to do whatever it is you want, and you split them into discrete chunks which have certain properties such that one being wrong does not undermine the others, and then you osanwë at the Silmarils the thought which will have the echo that imprints that character and if you get one wrong you have to do that chunk over."

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"...why do you have to do it over."

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"- because it's wrong?"

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"And you can't edit it?"

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"Nope. You have to start over. I have a pretty good error rate but that means about one character in a thousand comes out wrong, and you have to do a block an average of twice."

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"So a charm to let you edit directly would cut dev time in half."

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" - more that that, you could skip the chunking in the first place. Can you do that?"

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"It's easy with writing - I'd need to know more about how this is different -"

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He can do a very detailed description while Finis and Minor review the memories of Fëanáro's Silmaril notes.

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Miranda takes notes, asks questions, tries a naive application of a few things on a less valuable magical object and investigates how they fail, and gets to work.

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And so do the rest of them.