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orf beka is his favorite
Permalink Mark Unread

She's got the baby and she's on her way to the hallucination set and then there's a thing. It eats three orcs. - Not eats. It... puts, three orcs, through its face. There aren't bulges in its body, no chewing no blood no pain even when she can still read someone's mind in the last moment before their head is gone -

Yeah her plan probably wasn't gonna work anyway she steps into the snake portal.

Permalink Mark Unread

And then she is somewhere else.

Specifically she is standing on the second-tallest tower of a stunningly beautiful castle, overlooking a stunningly beautiful lake, with a view down a partly forested rocky mountainside to a city that is not nearly so stunningly beautiful but is still worth a second glance at this distance.

The castle seems at first glance deserted, or very close to it, but also very well-maintained. The lake has some pretty white birds on it.

- the birds have minds. The birds are not especially happy people.

Permalink Mark Unread

There is a person in the castle who is reading a book of poetry in a completely unfamiliar language.

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And there is a person outside the castle who is circling around it as a gust of wind, enjoying the sensation of flight.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well sucks to be swans this is pretty. Way better results than you normally expect from walking into a snake. Weird that a Maia isn't keeping private thoughts. She piggybacks on the flying for a moment, stares at the view for more moments, then goes looking for a way down the tower.

Permalink Mark Unread

The - Maia? - notices her.

He flies down and materializes on the tower, next to the door that seems likely to lead to a set of stairs leading down.

"Who the fuck're you and what are you doing on my mountain? - with the ugliest baby I've ever seen?"

Permalink Mark Unread

I'm an orf and this is my baby and I got here by weird magic I don't understand.

Permalink Mark Unread

- uh, speaking of weird incomprehensible magic, she's talking in his mind?

...fine.

"I don't know what an orf is so I'm not really sure that answers my question."

Permalink Mark Unread

The baby is an orc, and my parents were Elves, and I'm in between. There's only one orf right now and that's me.

Permalink Mark Unread

"...okay. Were you trying to go somewhere in particular and just landed in my castle by accident, or...?"

Permalink Mark Unread

I wanted to be not where I was, and I had a plan but it was pretty stupid, and then this thingy showed up and ate people but it didn't seem to be swallowing them or hurting them, so I let it eat me. I am pretty pleased with the results it is so pretty here!

Permalink Mark Unread

- aw. He likes her being pleased. She does a good being pleased.

"You probably could've landed in safer places but I'm not sure you could've managed a prettier one, not on this planet anyway. I'm glad you like it."

Permalink Mark Unread

It's so pretty! Nothing is pretty where I'm from except, like, my art, and I had to argue with the tattoo guy a lot to get him to do pretty things. Anyway it's not safe there either.

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"Your art?"

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Art! She manages to pull off her shirt without having to put down the baby. She shows off the circles of various sizes cascading down her shoulder, big ones up high and little ones farther down. She turns and tosses the longer bits of her hacked-uneven hair so he can see the wheat-topped whip marks.

Permalink Mark Unread

That's some pretty good art. That might be the best art he has in fact ever seen. Wow. Art.

 

"I like your art."

Permalink Mark Unread

I have lots! She takes off the rest of her outfit too. She is a little flirty about it but not in a way that makes it seem like nudity is inherently flirtatious. Scrollwork on her hip swirling around wickedly deep puncture marks! Flowers that might be covering a previously very broken ankle! Abstract swirl up her leg incorporating a nasty but oddly neat burn!

Permalink Mark Unread

Nudity sure is inherently flirtatious in this probably-not-a-Maia's home culture.

"Impressive." And really fucking hot. "How'd you end up with all those?"

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Whenever something happened to me that seemed like it was gonna stick around I went to my tattoo guy and got him to pretty it up!

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"Those sound like stories I want to hear." Oh does he ever.

Permalink Mark Unread

Gosh. Well, one time I got in a Balrog's way, Balrogs're a kind of Maia that looks like this, terrifying fuckoff fire monster image, and being in one's way is a real bad plan and it grabbed me round the leg with its fire whip thing and flung me down four flights of stairs, that's where the leg one came from. It shined hot for weeks before I could let my tattoo guy color it in and put in neighbor stripes. The ankle one was one of the times the baby's daddy was working me over real bad, he liked to try to make me say stuff I didn't wanna say, I barely remember a thing about it I spaced out so bad, I fixed most of it with magic but my ankle I could just barely make bend right again, there were bone splinters everywhere, so tattoo guy turned 'em into stamens and did petals... I've never seen a real flower, just telepathy about 'em.

Permalink Mark Unread

He thinks of the prettiest flower he can remember seeing, an indigo-edged white one whose name he forgets if he ever knew it, and he tugs on his conjuration spell and the flower materializes in his hand. He gives it to her. There isn't really a clear reason behind the impulse, except that it seems like it might make her happy and she does such a good happy.

Permalink Mark Unread

Oh it's so pretty oh wow it's real - She smells it and stares at it delightedly and then tucks it into one of the shrimpy braids the longer bits of her hair allow.

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Well that was every bit as delightful as he expected. He beams at her.

"You're lovely," he says. "You should get to have flowers."

A gentle rain of rose petals, silver like her hair, materializes in the air around them and swirls on a magically directed breeze. Doing unstructured magic to make the air move just so is a rush - picking a bit of power out of the vast torrent available to him and spinning it up so it does exactly the thing he wants and nothing else, balancing the wild chaotic magic with an effortless ease so well-practiced he barely thinks about it.

Permalink Mark Unread

She bounces, and catches one and pets it with the hand that isn't holding the baby.

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Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww she is so precious can he keep her. He thinks he would like to keep her. He thinks he would like to keep her for much longer than he keeps his swans, and much more nicely. She does such a good happiness.

Permalink Mark Unread

Do you have a name?

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such a good happiness

"Serik Tanaikon. You?"

Permalink Mark Unread

In Angband you have to earn having a name and most people haven't especially not me.

Permalink Mark Unread

"- the fuck d'you do instead, then?"

Permalink Mark Unread

If you need to talk about somebody a lot you nickname them or call them by their job or something. Like there's my baby and my tattoo guy and the blacksmith and Weird-Ear. My siblings call me, like, 'slut' and 'flowers' and 'prettybutt' and 'braids' and 'inky' and 'tunes' and stuff.

Permalink Mark Unread

"It'll be weird if I don't have anything to call you... 'Rima'," he suggests. 'Art' in his native Ansati instead of the Nathuremi he's been speaking. Switching languages makes it feel more like a name to him without it really being any different from 'prettybutt' on a conceptual level. It feels to him like it should be up to her whether to keep the nickname thing going or pick up a proper name now that she is out of that increasingly awful-sounding place.

(It has sort of half occurred to him that she is probably reading his mind what with the thing where she's carrying on a perfectly coherent conversation while pretty obviously not knowing the language and also talking exclusively in his head. He hasn't actually paused to contemplate the idea head-on, or think through the implications, but insofar as he has thought about it he doesn't especially object.)

Permalink Mark Unread

I love it!

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Awwwwwwwwwwww what a good. He beams at her some more and conjures a white rose petal that floats down a few inches and gently sticks to the end of her nose.

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Giggle. She lifts up her baby. The baby grabs the rose petal and eats it.

Permalink Mark Unread

- the baby is - kind of concerning, the last time Serik had anything to do with raising a kid it did not turn out super great - he loves his daughter but, uh. (The thought is not very clear on the exact contents of 'uh'.)

Well, whatever. If Rima comes with a baby then Rima comes with a baby. He certainly wouldn't dream of trying to separate them.

"- why is she so funny-looking," he says, which is a stunningly tactless thing to say about somebody's baby, isn't it, but if he didn't ask he'd never find out.

Permalink Mark Unread

She's an orc. They're supposed to look like that. Melkor breeds orcs out of Elves - I'm the intermediate generation - and orcs are supposed to be very unlike Elves and Elves are pretty.

Permalink Mark Unread

"Uh. Why."

That just seems like a completely insane hobby to have. Like, his favourite hobby may not be the most normal and unobjectionable thing ever, but at least he doesn't magically make people's children uglier, what the fuck?

Permalink Mark Unread

He uses orcs as troops and slaves. Elves are a huge pain to use like that.

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"I'm not super impressed with this guy, I have to say."

Maybe it's just that it vaguely reminds him of himself when he was younger. Except if he'd magically created a bunch of people to be his slaves he would've made them all very nice-looking.

Permalink Mark Unread

The ugly part might be specifically to upset Elves extra.

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"What'd Elves do to him?"

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Oh, Melkor is a god and he's at war with the Elf gods.

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"I hope that mess doesn't follow you here, that'd be annoying."

He is not especially worried about his ability to fight off both sides of a divine war by himself, but he would much rather spend his time doing fun things like rain flower petals on his new orf's adorable head. Also his daughter might get hurt and that would be bad.

Permalink Mark Unread

I don't think it will! I was not super valuable.

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"They must value very different things than I do."

He conjures a sweet-smelling silver-white rose and gives it to her.

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She smells it and adds it to her hair and twirls. Yep. I was breeding stock pretty much.

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"Well. I don't want you as breeding stock. I think you have the loveliest smile I've ever seen and I want to give you nice things so you keep smiling it."

Permalink Mark Unread

Giggle. That sounds awesome!

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He beams again. He kind of wants to scoop her up and kiss her but he isn't sure whether that would qualify as a nice thing and he's too giddy to come up with a way to ask, look at her, she's amazing.

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She adjusts the baby on her shoulder and traipses up to kiss him.

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Oh well that solves that problem. (Kissing someone who's holding a baby is kind of weird? Whatever.) Mmmm. She is every bit as kissable as he might have hoped.

Permalink Mark Unread

I can put her down somewhere if there's somewhere.

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- yeah she's totally reading his mind - well that just makes it convenient to talk while he is busy kissing her - would she like him to fly her somewhere that has a comfortable place to sit down and a good place to put the baby - what are the criteria for good places to put a baby -

Permalink Mark Unread

That'd be swell! Anywhere softish not the floor should be good.

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So he scoops them both up and turns them all into wind and flies through the castle to a charmingly decorated bedroom with a lovely view down the mountain, and as soon as they arrive he conjures a sort of cozy pillowy nest-thing for her to put her baby in.

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Being wind is exhilarating! She nests her baby and twirls into his arms cackling delightedly.

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And he kisses her and picks her up and spins her around and then tosses her onto the enormous soft bed and pounces.

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Gosh! What ever might he be going to do with her!

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Delightful things, he hopes!

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Oh gosh! She just so happens to love delightful things!

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It's nice how that works out!

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Yep!!!!

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And - some hours later - what a delightfully delighted orf he now has. Perhaps he will snuggle her. That sounds like a plan.

Permalink Mark Unread

Snuggle! And: The baby's hungry.

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Cozy snuggle.

- vague uncertainty regarding what to do about that.

Permalink Mark Unread

Do you have food here? She'll eat most things. Crickets? Zucchini? Millet?

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"...I have food here. Not sure I can manage crickets. Would you like to just try stuff -?"

Permalink Mark Unread

Sure! What's complicated about crickets?

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"I have a spell for conjuring food and it can do anything I've ever given it but I've never given it crickets."

He conjures some food. First six things that come to mind.

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She scoops up her baby. She tastes a creamy soup one handed, then gives the baby a spoonful. The baby gnaws on a bivalve. She seems to approve. Tastes of everything go in orf and then in baby and things the baby likes continue to go in the baby and then the orf finishes three of the things herself.

Permalink Mark Unread

What a cute orf he has.

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And then she kisses her baby's forehead and sings her a song.

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It's pretty.

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It is! The orf is a good singer! She knows a lot of songs and sings a bunch of them to the baby, who doesn't seem super interested.

Permalink Mark Unread

One wonders what the point of singing them to the baby is then. But they're very pretty.

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Can I go wandering around this pretty building?

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"Sure, just stay out of the northwest wing, my daughter lives there."

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Okay. Is it easy to tell where the wing starts?

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He attempts to send her a mental image. The aesthetic styles are pretty distinct; the transition would be very hard to miss.

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Okay, I'll keep out of there! Kiss. She seems completely unconcerned about strolling out of the room stark naked.

Permalink Mark Unread

- huh, does the privacy spell - yep it totally does cover that, Iri and Rima are going to be cleverly prevented from being in the same room as one another while she's wandering around with no clothes on. Which is good because Iri would probably be really flustered about that. Do orfs-and-so-forth just not have a thing about nudity at all.

Permalink Mark Unread

Do you want me to put on clothes? I can put on clothes.

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It is not a huge problem but yes it would be more convenient if you mostly wore clothes when wandering around public areas. There's magic wardrobes in all the guest rooms that will give you things that fit you, although I can't promise you'll consider them fashionable.

Permalink Mark Unread

I bet they're pretty, everything here is pretty! Is the room she just came out of a guest room? Does it have a wardrobe?

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Yes it is and yes it does and yes they totally are. And he is admiring her art again. She has such pretty art.

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She twirls! And rummages through the pretty. And puts some on in dove grey and blue. And twirls again.

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She is so pretty and cute. What a wonderful orf he has.

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She bounces! And kisses him and snuggles her ugly baby and skips off into the hallway to look at all of this lovely hallway.

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There is a lot of lovely hallway, and many other lovely architectural features after that. Gardens! Courtyards! Huge ballroom! Enormous library! A really utterly excessive number of bedrooms for a castle inhabited by two-now-four people on a mountain with a total population of less than thirty all the rest of whom are birds!

Permalink Mark Unread

Your castle is soooooooo nice! Did you make it? she asks, admiring a water feature in a garden. With her toes. Toes seemed important for appreciation of this water feature.

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I conjured it from scratch three and a half thousand years ago and I've been improving it ever since.

He decides he would like to watch her appreciate his castle. He turns into a breeze and goes looking for her.

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She giggles. Here she is ankle deep in a water feature! She dips her fingers and flicks water at the baby. "Aba," says the baby. The orf laughs again and splashes her feet; the edges of her skirt get damp.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well that's adorable. He materializes so he can grin and kiss her.

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Eeeeee!

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She is the cutest best most delightful orf, he's sure.

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I like you.

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I like you too. Giggly kisses.

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She is still holding the baby and does not want to put her down in a water feature but is quite happy about kisses in spite of that!

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Hmm this does not look at all like Rima appreciating his architecture maybe he should just be a breeze again so as to stop distracting her.

...The breeze ruffles her hair.

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She maybe reacts more to that than most people would, with a shiver and a giggle. She gets out of the water feature and lies down on the grass with her baby on her chest till her feet are dry, then steps back into her wardrobe-provided shoes and journeys onward to gaze delightedly at more things.

Permalink Mark Unread

Her delighted gazing is so good. (Her shivers and giggles are also good. He should remember the hair-ruffling thing for the next time he is delighting his orf.)

Permalink Mark Unread

Architecturrrrrrrrre! Plants! She picks flowers and makes a wreath and drapes it on her unimpressed baby.

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Serik follows her around and watches her be delighted at things. It is the best. It is just so the best.

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Eventually she is delighted by a guest room and she flops into the bed and kisses her baby and puts her down beside her and goes to sleep.

Permalink Mark Unread

Awwwwwwwwww. Best and cutest orf.

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She doesn't sleep that long. She wakes up and resumes wandering. She investigates one of the tables at which food appears and is surprised and delighted and tries everything and gives her baby some of most of it.

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Serik sleeps a little longer than she does, but he is awake in time to find her at the table and materialize and hug her because she is the best and cutest orf.

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Eee! Hi!

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"Hi." Kiss. "You're adorable."

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Thank you!

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He kisses her again, then sits down at the table to acquire breakfast.

"Enjoying life at my castle so far?"

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It's so nice, everything in it is gorgeous, it could've been built by Elves - what are you anyway -

Permalink Mark Unread

"Human, I guess. There's only the one thing to be around here. Unless somebody turns you into something like I did with my swans."

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Why did you turn them into swans, anyway?

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"Oh, it's kind of a long story, but there's a spell to make people really thoroughly immortal and it doesn't work quite right and it wrecks them after a while, and if they spend half their time as swans they get wrecked half as fast."

(It is useful to have his swans be really thoroughly immortal because otherwise he keeps accidentally killing them. Even with the swan spell burning them out, he still goes through them way slower than he used to.)

Permalink Mark Unread

I guess your magic doesn't do reembodiments?

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"Huh? Making a body is the easiest part of the problem, it's the being dead part that gets in the way -"

- he's actually put some thought into resurrection before because that would make his swans recyclable, and he can't quite get it figured out, but if he had something to embody it'd be a breeze by comparison.

Permalink Mark Unread

Wait, so when humans or swan humans die they just sort of evaporate, they don't go anywhere?

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"- yeah? Why, do orfs and so on stick around?"

Good news if they do. Means he won't have to be sad if his orf dies, he can just bring her back.

Permalink Mark Unread

Well, our souls go to the halls of Mandos, who is one of the Elf gods, and most orcs think that if he gets orc souls he tortures them forever but milady Thuringwethil says he doesn't, but he definitely doesn't let them be alive again. But Elves can just die and come right back.

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"Oh, so if you die and I want you back I have to go fight a god for it?"

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I could probably stay floating around here? I dunno I've never been dead.

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"Well, if it comes up, try the floating-around thing." He ruffles her hair. "I'd definitely fight a god for you but I'd rather not have to."

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Sharp gasp and a lean into his hand. Okay I will!

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"Is that an orf thing or a you thing or what, humans do not react to having their hair touched like that." Ruffle.

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Whimper. Elf thing, orcs don't have it but I do. It's better when it's longer.

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"Well, I like it."

He moves his chair away from the table so he can scoop her into his lap and kiss her and play with her hair.

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The baby is put on the table with a corncob to gnaw and the orf melts under his hands.

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What a good orf. The best. So cute and pettable and kissable and, and delightable.

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She issssss.

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Mmmm. So good. So good so good so good.

 

Eventually: "Oh, I interrupted you in the middle of breakfast, didn't I." He snuggles his cozy lapful of orf.

Permalink Mark Unread

A little bit! It's okay.

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"Okay." Snuggle. Kiss. "Would you like to go back to eating breakfast, or...?" Explore the castle some more, be whisked off to another guest room and delighted for a while...?

Permalink Mark Unread

Oooh you could whisk me. Being wind is fun. I don't wanna be more than a room away from the baby though.

Permalink Mark Unread

Babies are also whiskable! Like so.

He conjures another nest for the baby in the charmingly decorated guest suite they land in, and then he kisses his orf and carries her to bed where he can delight her.

Permalink Mark Unread

She is so delightable! Especially if he plays with her hair!

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He definitely plays with her hair. Her hair is lovely. She is lovely. He kisses her and snuggles her and rains flower petals on her and touches all her art and is continually amazed by how wonderful she is.

Permalink Mark Unread

It's so nice and she makes it really loudly clear how nice!

Permalink Mark Unread

Best orf.

And, after much delight, he snuggles her contentedly and thinks about whether he wants to go bother his swans. He does not especially want to do that. But if he leaves it for another week there is some chance the mountain will explode, which he doesn't want either. The whole pain magic arrangement seemed much more convenient before he had an orf.

Permalink Mark Unread

Why would the mountain explode?

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"- oh, it's - sort of how magic works -"

He has this spell he built, and it makes him and his daughter immortal and supports all kinds of other conveniences like the food conjuration spell and the swan spell and the vast rushing stream of leftover power that he can dip into whenever he wants. But it's made out of pain magic, and pain magic tends to get fucked up if you leave it alone, so he needed a way to stabilize it, and the best way he found was to make it stay stable as long as he keeps feeding it more power, which is fine most of the time because torture is a fun hobby anyway. But now he has his orf, and delighting her is his new favourite pastime, and he is going to have to go back to the other thing sooner than he'd like because he's pretty sure she would not be delighted by the kinds of things he does to keep his spell going.

Permalink Mark Unread

I mean I can take some shit but I dunno about delighting.

Can you use the baby's, she hurts anyhow.

Permalink Mark Unread

"She does? Why?"

The tone of his initial reaction is more 'what the fuck, can I fix that' than 'oh, that's convenient'. If he can't fix it then he might as well use it, but still, what the fuck.

Permalink Mark Unread

It's how orcs work. The reason you can make orcs from Elves is that Elves are souls that project themselves onto bodies, and if you torture a kid with two Elf parents all her life the projection gets fucked up, and the next generation is self-torturing and projects being an orc instead. They can think around it fine, she can still be happy and have fun and do things.

Permalink Mark Unread

"...Well that's fucked up. Sure, I'll see if I can use what she's got."

He scoops up his orf and kisses her and puts her down again and goes over to where they left the baby and tries to pick up her pain -

- and yep, that's a fair amount of pain all right. If it's consistent over time, he could nearly keep the whole mountain going just by hanging out with the baby a lot - if he found a way to hook the baby into the spell directly that didn't mess her up at all and just funneled all the power away before it could go to waste, she could keep the spell stable all by herself and he wouldn't even have to touch it -

"Okay that's pretty amazing, but - are you sure she wouldn't rather grow up not in pain, if I could figure out a way to do that -"

Permalink Mark Unread

"...that would be nice, yeah, if you could do it."

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He goes back to his orf. He snuggles her.

"It's - I'd sure like to be able to just never worry about feeding my spell again, but it seems kinda more important for your kid not to grow up in constant pain?" Hug.

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"Thank you."

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Snuggle. Kiss.

He wants her to be happy, and yes a lot of that is because watching her be happy is the most amazing thing in the world, but also he just - wants her to be happy. And that means her kid too, and however bad he is at kids he has at least figured out that you don't torture them.

Permalink Mark Unread

Snuggle!

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Awwwwww best orf.

Okay if he's going to do this he should think about how - he picks up bits of power from the stream and plays with them, exploring how sensation works. Would his lovely orf like to help him with this part. He can think of lots of ways to experiment with magically altered sensations that are likely to be pretty delightful.

Permalink Mark Unread

Oooooooh.

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Fun!!

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So much fun!!!!!!

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Mmmmmmm she is so good. Best most delightable orf.

"- oh," he says, when they're back to snuggling for the moment, "I could try the healing water from the old capital, it might be that simple -" and his thoughts at least furnish a vague half-explanation: there used to be an empire that used a different magic to make all kinds of amazing things, and one of the amazing things is a fountain of healing water that can cure basically anything, and it is over in that long-abandoned city surrounded by hazards but the hazards are no big deal to Serik and he could go get some and see if it helps the baby any.

Permalink Mark Unread

Sounds worth a try! I'll know if she feels better.

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"Okay. Back in a few hours, then."

He kisses her and tucks cozy blankets over her and then turns into a breeze and flies away, off toward the old capital and out of her range.

Permalink Mark Unread

Orf and baby nap.

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He's back a couple of hours later with a bunch of pretty glass bottles full of healing water. He snuggles up beside his orf.

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She yawns and nuzzles him dozily.

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"You're adorable. Healing water!"

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"Healing water!" she repeats with an adequate attempt at accent. She scoops her baby to give her some.

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Serik hugs his orf. He thinks her accent is adorable.

The healing water - works.

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"Eeeee!" squeals the orf. The baby waves her arms in confusion and says "bweh".

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He scoops up orf and baby and spins them around and hugs them and puts them down again and kisses his orf.

"Well, I could've thought of that a few hours earlier and saved some experimenting, but on the other hand it was such lovely experimenting."

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It was so lovely! How long will it last -

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"Should be things the healing water fixes are just fixed and that's that, but if the thing comes back somehow there's always more healing water, the fountain's not going anywhere."

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She kisses him hard.

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He kisses back. Delightedly. It is so good when she's happy.

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She's so happy!!!!

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It's the best!

 

- oh. He's in love with her. That's what that feeling is. Well, it's pretty obvious in retrospect, but he can see how he would've missed it, never having done that before.

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Awwwww.

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Kiss.

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Kiss!

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Awww she is so happy it is so good yeah he is definitely in love with her. Snuggle-kiss.

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Do you wanna know a secret?

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Sure.

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I have a name!

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"Oh good!" Kiss. "Do I get to know what it is?"

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"Beka!"

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"Pretty!" Kiss.

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My mom sometimes telepathied me when she was more lucid and named me secretly. Nobody else knows!

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"Aww."

It feels very nice to know her secret name. He hugs her some more.

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I named the baby too! She's Kat.

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"That's a cute name. You're cute."

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Thank you!

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Hug. Kiss. Oh wow this being in love thing sure is an experience. He kind of wants to snuggle her forever despite the rampant impracticality of this plan.

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It is kind of impractical but she is not gonna stop him any time soon!

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Oh good! Snuggle. Snuggle snuggle.

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I am so glad I walked into that weird snake!

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Giggle. "Me too!"

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Snuggle snuggle snuggle snuggle kiss.

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Mmm yes those things. Those are some good things.

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Such a happy orf. Such a suddenly wigglier baby, although she is still pretty quiet.

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He snuggles his happy orf.

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Eventually: Does your daughter stay in her wing all the time?

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"No, she comes out to use the library and occasionally to talk to me. Why, did you want to meet her?"

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Wondered if I'd ever run into her. I'm not in a hurry but it might be interesting!

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"She's - I was going to say 'much nicer than I am' but I've been so aggressively nice to you that from your point of view it might not actually be true - she's a much better person than I am, anyway."

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You have been so nice to me! You have been nicer to me than literally anybody ever! I mean, most of them did not have a ton of options but still.

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"You're really rewarding to be nice to!" Kiss.

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Kiss!!!!

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Yes. Like that. That is an example of how being nice to her is rewarding.

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It's so fun that I can just be happy about nice things and you think it's so great!

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"Well it is!" Scoop. Kiss. "Are you a books sort of person, do you want to see the library - I could read to you -"

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There aren't really books in Angband and most orcs can't read but I can because I'm an actress! But I don't know the language. It'd be fun if you read to me.

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"An actress? Exciting. Or, I don't know, is acting in Angband horrible in some way, everything else seems to be -"

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Oh yeah literally everything in Angband is horrible in some way. Acting is being a character in a hallucination for a prisoner.

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"I'm gonna guess these are not nice friendly take-your-mind-off-being-imprisoned hallucinations."

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Some of them are not all torture all the time, but those ones are usually designed so if they ever get out of Angband they think it's a hallucination like the last six times they got out of Angband.

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"Wow. Nasty."

Sounds like something Hali would do - he used to have a best friend, she was very pretty and very horrible and her favourite hobby was also torture but unlike Serik she was super into mind games. In the thousands of years since she died he has concluded that she was probably secretly laughing at him the whole time they were friends. To be fair, the whole time they were friends he was a huge mess.

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Sounds like she'd get along with his lordship.

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"Who's that?"

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Melkor's lieutenant. He really likes the mind games part of the torture. Also the sex part. Before the snake thing came along I was going to try kidnapping his lordship's boyfriend out of a hallucination and running away with him so his Elf family would take me in.

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"Let me guess, his lordship's boyfriend does not want to be his lordship's boyfriend."

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I don't think anybody wants to be his lordship's boyfriend. He's not one of those people it's safer to be fucking.

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Snort. "If I was a better person maybe I'd go find this place and burn it to the ground."

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That'd be really hard, Melkor's protecting it, it's not just a plain fortress.

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"Well." Snuggle. "I'm not a better person and I'd rather stay here with my delightable orf."

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I miss my brothers and sisters and friends and kind of my parents but they're all sworn and stuff, even if you could beat Melkor in a fight if you went and got them they'd probably be trouble.

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Snuggle.

"Sworn?"

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Snuggle! Orcs have to swear oaths to serve Melkor - and other stuff, mostly about Elves - as soon as they can talk. So if Melkor, like, objected to you stealing my family from him, he could order them whatever he wanted on the way out and they'd have to do it.

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"- like, magic oaths?"

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Yeah. I've probably sworn some but I space out when I'm tortured enough to do it so I don't remember what they are so it doesn't work.

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"...that's really fucked up."

Snuggle.

"Do I even wanna know why you only kind of miss your parents -?"

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Our relationship is kind of complicated 'cause they tortured me a lot till I was grown up.

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"- what the fuck. What. What the fuck. Is - were they ordered to or something -"

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Well, yeah. These were my foster parents, they're orcs. After I was older it could be less careful so random people could do it instead but when I was growing up they had to make sure I was hurting enough not to just plain be an Elf but not in ways that would stunt my growth or make it so I couldn't have kids or walk or something. I noticed they weren't doing it to my little sister once I had a little sister and I asked them and they said it was so I didn't turn into an Elf so they wouldn't love me any more. - One of the oaths is they have to hate Elves, but I'm not an Elf.

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He hugs her very tightly and tries to calm himself down, because his impulse reaction is intense rage and a burning desire to destroy Melkor, and that seems like maybe not the most helpful thing he could possibly be feeling right now. But she is his orf, his best, his favourite, and he loves her, and - you don't torture your own children, you just don't, and even more than that you do not make somebody else torture their children, and most of all you do not do that when the child in question is his precious Beka -

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Snuggle snuggle snuggle.

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She is good and cute and precious and he loves her and wants her to be happy and he would absolutely fight a fucking god for her. But he does not need to drop everything and go fight a god literally this second.

Okay. Okay. There. Okay. He is calm now. Well, calm-ish.

"- still kind of wanna kill him," he admits.

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I don't think the Ainur even can die. The Elf gods had him locked up for a long time but his lordship was free and then the Elf gods paroled Melkor and he skipped out.

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"I'll figure something out."

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- he shakes his head. "If I do it, which - I might not - fighting gods just 'cause they pissed me off is not a great habit to get into..."

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If you lose he probably tortures you forever.

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"Then I guess I better make real sure I don't lose."

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Snuggle.

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Snuggle.

"I'm gonna wait until I can think about it without wanting to light something on fire before I decide if I really want to fight him or not, anyway. I just -" More snuggle. "- I guess this is how I get when somebody fucks with the people I love."

He has had some awkward moments with his daughter, centuries ago, where she left the mountain and someone figured out who she was and hurt her pretty badly to get at him and she did not appreciate what he did to those people in response. He would rather not let this impulse lead him to do something stupid.

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I don't think he can get me here and if he could he probably won't bother.

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Snuggle. "That's good."

...he still thinks maybe he will try to figure out how to kill a god, just in case. If anybody follows Beka here to try to fuck with her he is definitely going to fight them, no question about that.

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Thank you.

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"I love you." He kisses her. "I want to keep you safe."

It is actually kind of weird how he's barely even thought about hurting her since she got here. He likes hurting people, but - he only wants to do things to Beka that Beka will like. It is so good when she's happy. So sure, it would be hot if it turned out she was into being choked, or something, but he already enjoys delighting her more than he enjoys torturing his swans; the thought of torturing her when she's not into it is honestly really upsetting.

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Awwwww. You could tattoo me more art if you want! It prickles! And I like biting and scratching and hair pulling up to just before when hair comes out and being fucked like really hard. I think I'm harder to injure than you think I am.

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"I love you." He kisses her. He happily contemplates all those things.

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Kissing!!!

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Kissing! Contemplating tattoo design! Pulling her hair!

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MMmmmmf.

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So many lovely new ways to delight his orf!

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Such a delighted orf!

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And a pretty delighted Serik, too.

 

He kisses a bite mark on the back of her neck and offers her a bottle of healing water in case she would like to be less bitten now that the fun is temporarily over.

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You're sweet. Slurp. Snuggle.

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Snuggle. Kiss. "I love you and I want you to have good things."

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You're good at that!

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"Good! I'm glad!"

Hmm, tattoo designs... is there anything she'd particularly like?

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Pretty things! Stuff we don't have in Angband like plants and birds and snowflakes and calligraphy and lace and colors!

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"Ooh, snowflakes. I think snowflakes would look pretty on you." Kiss. "Lots of things look pretty on you. You're very pretty."

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I'm prettiest when I'm happy!

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"True!"

She's amazing when she's happy, she's the best thing when she's happy, it would probably not be much of an exaggeration to say that the way Beka looks when she's happy is addictive.

- he kisses her again.

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Kissessssssss~

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Most kissable orf!!!

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She is! Not only is she very kissable, she is the only orf!

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He happily contemplates where on her body he might put a snowflake. A pale shimmery silvery snowflake. Maybe the back of her neck, that seems like a good place.

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That would be great.

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He has never actually given anybody a tattoo before but it seems like the sort of thing that should be doable with magic, hmm... he plays with power a little, snuggling her.

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It is interesting to mindread.

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Playing with pain magic is fun! The power shifts and sparks and crackles, and he balances it effortlessly while he thinks about what he wants to do with it. There might be a way to get the look he wants without permanent magic involved but he has no idea what it is and the look he wants is really pretty so maybe Beka will just end up having a magic tattoo.

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That would be nifty!

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He imagines it. An intricate six-pointed snowflake, shimmering silver on the back of her neck, and the magic he'd have to put in to get it to look right - "it probably won't feel like getting a normal tattoo but I'm not sure what it'll feel like instead - d'you like it?"

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It's pretty!

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He kisses her. He conjures ink under her skin and enchants it to catch the light. It doesn't hurt like getting a normal tattoo - it just sort of feels tingly, and then that fades, and he turns her around and looks at the beautiful shining snowflake and kisses it.

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She borrows his eyes and squirms when it tingles and giggles. It's so good!

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"It's perfect. You're perfect." He wraps his arms around her and nuzzles her pretty pretty snowflake.

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Eeeee.

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She is just so much the best. Clearly he should delight her some more.

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Why that would be delightful!

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It would!

And then probably they should eat something and then hmm maybe they can go to the library and he can sit in one of the comfy chairs with Beka in his lap and Kat in a cozy nest nearby and he can read her his favourite poem.

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Awwwwwww. Snuggle.

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It's an Ansati epic about a mythical warrior queen going on adventures and slaughtering her enemies! It's really good poetry!

The gory bits are his favourite.

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The gory bits are plenty fun!

When he is done would he like to hear some orc stories? They have slaughtering Elves in there.

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Ooh sure.

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Orc stories! Slaughter! Capture! Torture!

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Those are some good stories.

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Serik's daughter shows up partway through a story.

She looks at her father, and the pretty girl in his lap who looks very happy to be there, and the exceptionally ugly baby in the cozy nest next to the chair.

This seems like... probably a positive development? Although she's a little worried about the baby. The baby may require some explanation.

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Hi! I'm an orf and that's my baby. She's supposed to look like that. I ran away from an evil god and your father's been terrifically lovely to me and it's nice to meet you.

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- it's not that she doesn't believe that her father has been terrifically lovely to the orf, exactly, she is seeing it demonstrated right in front of her, this is obviously her father interacting with someone he does not intend to harm. It's more that she's confused about how that happened. - also slightly concerned about the orf reading her mind. She would rather her mind not be readable like that.

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Serik looks up.

"...Hi, Iri."

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"Hello," she says; and to the orf, "My name is Irikaino. It's good to meet you."

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You can fix it so I can't read your mind but then I couldn't understand you unless you did more complicated stuff.

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"How complicated?"

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I guess not all that complicated. You have to think of your thoughts differently depending on if you want them readable or not, or readable to some people but not anybody who has osanwë.

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"Hmm. All right."

She considers ways to make that kind of division. She is not in any particular rush about it.

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"I want to fight a god," says Serik. "And I want a better swan spell and a self-sustaining foundation. - Pretty sure I'm in love. No complaints so far."

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She blinks.

...she smiles.

What he means by that half-coherent mess is that he's found a long-term pastime he strongly prefers over torture, and that's possibly the best news she has heard in her life. Although - "Why do you want to fight a god."

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"'Cause he's a worse person than I am?" But this is not his actual motivation; his actual motivation is, "He hurt my orf."

(He hugs his orf.)

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His orf hugs him back. Melkor is a way worse person than, uh, literally anybody! Except maybe his lordship!

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Hugs. "You probably don't want to know," he says to Iri, referring to the general subject of Melkor and associates. "Anyway. If he shows up I'm gonna kill him but we're pretty sure he won't show up. I might go kill him anyway but if I do I'm putting some thought into it first. You'll help, right?"

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"Yes," she says. "I will help you figure out how to fight a god."

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I'm still not sure he's theoretically possible to kill.

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"Well, then it might take us a while to figure out what to do to him instead."

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The Valar had him locked up for a while. But then he tricked them into paroling him. And he's not easy to put back. Also some continents broke the first time.

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"Sounds troublesome."

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I assume so but I wasn't born yet.

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"Well. I'll think about it."

She is slightly worried that her father is going to forget to feed the foundation spell, but not quite worried enough to bring it up. He's more responsible than that, these days.

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He was going to use the baby but then he found a way to make it so she didn't hurt instead. Orcs otherwise just hurt all the time.

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...that is terrible news about orc living conditions but excellent news about her father's capacity for kindness.

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He's been super sweet!

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She smiles. "I can see that."

It is a very good thing.

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Serik cuddles his orf.

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Yaaaaaay!

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Awwwww he loves his orf so much. She is so good and cute and huggable. Best orf.

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Irikaino smiles.

"It's - good to see you happy," she tells her father. Not that she hasn't seen him happy before, but it's a different kind of happiness, and it suits him. And it is very good that he has found something he enjoys more than torturing people. Even better that the enjoyable thing is making someone happy.

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He smiles. "Yeah."

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He gave me a new art, look - She tips her head so her thin little braids fall out of the way.

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Irikaino looks at the shimmering snowflake.

"It's very pretty," she says, contemplating how he must have done the magic to get it looking like that. She predicts that kind of subtle shimmer is going to start showing up around the castle next time he redecorates.

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It is! If I ever see my tattoo guy again he's gonna be jealous!

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"Even though Father cheated?"

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He'll be all 'all right orf make me a magic song so I can cheat too, I don't care if magic songs are fucking Elfy.'."

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"Magic song?" she says, intrigued.

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Oh it wouldn't work at all for making a tattoo shiny, I think, they pretty much only work while you're singing.

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"Oh. That's interesting. We don't have anything like that at all, here."

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Really? Well, I know a few songs - I can heal but not as well as the water and I can make myself look like a generic orc which was useful for not attracting attention and I know some that are for other things because characters in hallucinations would have known them so I got them, but I've never had a reason to walk on water or run through tree branches.

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"I suppose if you want to do those things, water and tree branches are available."

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I know!!!! It's great!!!!

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She smiles. "I can see why my father likes you so much."

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I'm cute when I'm happy! It works out!

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She smiles. "Yes."

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Snuggles~

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Aww.

"I will go think about how to fight gods," she says. "It was nice to meet you."

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You too! Let me know if you need to know things about gods or magic songs or whatever! I am not like classically educated but I know some things!

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"I'll do that."

She returns to her wing, thinking about fighting gods and how to maintain a private thoughts distinction.

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"That went well."

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Did you not think it would?

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"My daughter and I don't get along that well. She's upset about all the torture."

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Oh.

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"It's a perfectly reasonable thing to be upset about. I just - can't seem to care about it the right way."

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I'm just kind of used to it being a thing that's happening. Melkor has more prisoners than you have swans and they spend more time being tortured, let alone the orcs.

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"Yeah. All a matter of perspective, I guess."

And kind of convenient for him that his Beka has such low standards. If she was upset about him torturing people he'd really be in trouble.

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You aren't hurting me, and you helped my baby.

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He kisses her forehead. "Yeah."

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Snuggle!

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What a good orf. He is so happy about his orf.

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Eventually: "Baby's hungry again."

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Then orf and baby can be whisked off to a dining hall! And - "I should probably go feed my magic," he says. "See you."

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"See you!" And she feeds her baby things, and eats some things too.

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He goes and feeds his magic.

It is plenty of fun, it's just - he could be doing things that are so much more fun.

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Irikaino returns to the library after a little while. She would like to talk to the orf while her father is not around, because however charming they are together it is still a little awkward, but she isn't sure how to accomplish this besides by waiting outside her wing for the orf to happen across her; going and looking would run the risk of testing the privacy spell and she really strongly prefers not to do that even though it is a very good privacy spell and has not once failed to prevent her from walking in on her father in an especially awkward moment.

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Hey what's up? I'm in a dining room. I'm not sure how to find the library from here but osanwë reaches this far easy.

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I want to know everything you can tell me about gods.

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There's Eru who's the biggest god who made all the stuff and ignores it now that it's there, and there's fifteen Valar and one of them is Melkor, who hates all the other fourteen and also Eru and wants to wreck all their shit, and there's thousands of Maiar some of whom are almost as strong as Valar like his lordship is and some who are pretty little and many of whom want stupid random things like to sing to a tree forever. They're all really good at magic songs and can do some stuff depending on the individual one more directly than that but a lot of the stuff they can do is pretty slow to set up and works best on their own turf.

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So we would be at a much greater advantage fighting them here than there?

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Sort of? I think it matters more if they're on their turf than if you are, like, Melkor and his Maiar are going to be hardest to kill if they're in Angband, but I guess they might have a hard time hitting back if you're all the way over here. His lordship is very low on the wanting stupid random stuff - he just wants horrible stuff, not stupid random stuff - and he's pretty fast for an Ainu, Melkor might not even react to you until you did some damage. Oh also Angband runs several times faster than the exterior world.

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Hmm. Do magical songs work here, have you checked?

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I have not! I should! I will check my water walking song when I am done with this tableful of amazing food.

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Aww.

I'm glad you like the food. I'm proud of the food conjuration spells; I put in a lot of design work on them. My father is better at handling power directly but I'm better at spell design.

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The food is great! I don't recognize most of it but it's so tasty! He says it doesn't have crickets though.

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It does not have crickets. Would you like there to be crickets?

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I'm used to them but I won't miss them all that much.

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All right.

Hmm, things about gods...

What did you mean when you said it might not be possible to kill them?

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They don't have to have bodies. They can, or they can have a bunch of bodies, or they can be a volcano - well, Melkor can be a volcano - but if you kill their body they just have to build another one, if they want one, or do without.

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So they can't be killed by destroying their bodies, but there might be other ways. Destroying their minds directly, perhaps.

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I'm not sure if the Valar tried it but they say even Elf and orc souls are indestructible and Ainur are probably less destructible than that.

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Might have to come at the problem from multiple angles, then.

What ways can you cause someone who is a big problem to stop being a big problem if they can't die and don't need a body to act? Remove all of their memories? Perhaps move them very far away - do they still have locations when they are not using bodies?

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Yeah. Sometimes several.

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Several locations? Tricky.

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They have way more attention than incarnates and can be a dozen places. Or as good as, borrowing senses or whatever.

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Then moving them far away probably won't work. But destroying or interfering with their minds might.

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Their minds are weird, not that much like incarnate minds.

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It would be good if we had an example to work with but perhaps it is ultimately better that we don't. What might they be able to do to interfere with us?

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I don't know if they can reach here. They can do a lot of stuff but I don't know exactly what makes a thing something they can do and not something they can't, or something they can only do at home. His lordship is very good at illusions and can do fully immersive hallucinations - he only even needs actors for crowd scenes or some personality types he's not good at pretending to be - they can mess with memories, add them not very fine-grained or delete them or put them back - they do a lot of fire and darkness type stuff but that could just be theming.

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So they will need mental protections, probably, that's a place to start. Thank you.

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You're welcome!

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I'm glad you get along so well with my father.

And not just because it means he's probably going to stop torturing people as soon as it is feasible for him to do so. ...but substantially because of that.

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Me too!

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Please let me know if you think of anything else about gods that might be relevant. I hope you have fun testing your water-walking song.

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I don't know what else is relevant?

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Well, neither do I or I would've asked directly. I suppose the question is, if you had unimaginable power and wanted to figure out how to use it to destroy Melkor without letting him retaliate, what would you want to know...

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The Noldor thought they could do it with the Silmarils but Melkor stole them and the inventor is dead. His kids are alive though. But one is in Angband. I don't know what they were going to do with them. Melkor just wears them in his crown. If he dies the continent might fall apart.

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The continent falling apart is fairly trivial to fix if we know to be prepared for it.

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Well, watch for it.

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Thank you.

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You're welcome.

And her baby is no longer interested in food so she eats until she isn't either and then she wanders until she finds a garden with enough water feature to walk on!

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The water feature proves to be very walkable!

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I can walk on water!!!

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Congratulations. Is it fun?

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Yes!

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I'm glad!

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Do you wanna try?

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Is it something I could do? It doesn't - only work for the person singing, or something? I am not much of a singer.

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I can sing it for you, if you can't sing it well enough.

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Then maybe I will try it. Where are you?

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Mental image of garden.

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She goes to that garden.

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Hi! And she sings the song.

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And Irikaino walks on water.

 

It's really fun.

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Bounce bounce.

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Irikaino grins at her.

"Thank you," she says. "Maybe I'll design a spell for that after I've solved all the important problems."

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"You're welcome."

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It occurs to her that this might be the happiest she has been in her life. She smiles at the orf again. I'm so glad you came here.

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Me too!

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And back to the library to think about how best to fight gods.

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Beka runs through the trees with the tree running song!

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Serik feeds his spell. And then finishes feeding his spell and finds Beka running through trees and catches up to her as a gust of wind and ruffles her hair.

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This is very distracting and she misses a note and catches a branch.

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He materializes and giggles at her and scoops her up for kisses.

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Eeee! (The baby is sleeping in a patch of flowers.)

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"You're adorable." Kiss. "The tree-running thing looks like fun."

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"It is! I can sing for you too but only if you don't make me mess up the song."

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"Sounds like fun." He kisses her and puts her down again.

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She sings again and hauls herself up a tree and races off. The pronouns have been adjusted to accommodate another runner.

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He follows her.

It's so much fun!!

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It iiiiiiiiiis! Run run run run duck leap swing land jump run run run!

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It's a lot of the same things that are good about flying or playing with magic but also there is interesting novelty and his orf involved. So many good things.

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And then the baby wants to be picked up so she goes and scoops her.

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And he follows along as a breeze and rematerializes and hugs his orf. He has the best orf.

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Ee! She leans on him and kisses him.

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Mmmmkisses.

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Mmmmmmmmm!

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Best orf. Best best best best orf. So much the best.

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He's funny. She giggles.

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He giggles too. And cuddles his orf. She is so delightable! The best!!!

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Kiss!

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Mm. Yes. Kiss. What an excellent plan. Maybe he should whisk her back to the castle and find another bedroom to delight her in.

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Yes please.

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Baby goes in nest. Orf goes in bed. Aggressive delighting ensues.

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Eeeeeeeheeheehee.

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Mmmmmm what a good orf. A good kissable delightable orf.

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She is having so much fun being his delightable orf!

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It's a really good thing they've got going on here!!!

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And for the foreseeable future the orf will not tire of exploring the pretty and being delighted in various ways and singing to her baby.

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There is a lot of pretty castle to explore. Serik feeds his spell and delights his orf and consults with his daughter about spell design and delights his orf and conjures nests for the baby whenever he happens to need to put the baby down and delights his orf and delights his orf and delights his orf.

 

One day he says, "Iri thinks she's got something for making sure we can't be dragged into hallucinations or have our memories messed with or whatever, so I'm gonna build it. Might take me a few days." Kiss. "I'll be a lot more boring than usual but I guess you can still read my mind if you want to watch me play with magic."

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It's fun! she assures him. It's so different from songs.

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Smile. Kiss. "I love you."

And he curls up in bed and spends three days straight, without breaks for food or sleep or anything else, wrestling a huge chunk of power into the right shape to be a clever efficient extensible comprehensive mental defense spell.

When he finishes building it, his mind disappears for ten seconds until he lets her see it again. It's nice that his orf can read his mind! He would not want to give that up!

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Awwww you're sweet.

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It wouldn't be nearly so easy to find new ways to delight you if you couldn't just comment on whatever happens to cross my mind!

Like, oh, he bets they didn't have ice skating in Angband, maybe he could take her ice skating sometime.

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Oh gosh that sounds amazing.

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See?

He turns into a breeze and finds her and scoops her up and hugs her.

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Whee! Scooping!

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Mmmm best coziest cuddliest orf. Kiss.

"And now I should really go sleep," he yawns. "See you."

And he kisses her again and puts her down and breezes away.

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Leaving her to pleasantly anticipate ice skating and roam around and snuggle and sing to her baby and taste food and peer at books she can't read yet and nap in the garden instead of a guest room just 'cause why not!

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And then he wakes up and goes and tortures a swan for a while because he really shouldn't leave it any longer, and then he goes and finds his orf where she is napping in the garden and awws at her but doesn't wake her up, and flies off to remodel an uninhabited section of his mountain into a nice big frozen lake for ice skating on.

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She yawns awake a bit later and makes the baby a flower garland.

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Meanwhile Serik has gotten distracted by ice sculpture! He is turning one end of the new lake into a miniature city.

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Wander wander food nom nom. I can tell sorta where you are but not how to get there! she says when the nom is over.

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I can come get you!

He finishes the latest ice castle and breezes around the mountain back to his actual castle.

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Here is his orf, her baby industriously chewing a hard caramel.

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Awww. Scoop.

"Want to go ice skating?"

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Yes I do!

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So he whisks them both away to the new lake and makes a cozy nest for the baby and ice skates and winter coats for himself and Beka. Skating!!

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Oooh her coat is fluffy. Skating is new! She falls down! She gradually stops falling down! She fiddles with her balance song to make it apply to skating!

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Serik does not need a balance song to skate. Serik is three thousand years old and has spent a not-insignificant fraction of that time skating. He is pretty good at it by now. Whee!

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Once she has her song working she can do little jumps! And then bigger jumps!

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Fun!!!

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So fun!!!!

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Does she like to be scooped up and twirled around while skating, is that fun too?

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Oh boy! Yes it is!

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Eeeee what a good orf.

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Skating jumping being caught skating twirling singing skating!

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So good!!!!!

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Meanwhile, Irikaino composes a checklist.

If they had an Ainu around, they could build an Ainu-killing spell, even if they then went on to not use it against that particular test subject; but the magic refuses to give hints about how one might use it to kill a kind of being that has never existed in this world. So their best bet, if they ever need to fight a god, is for Serik to pick up a lot of power and start trying things on the spot until one of them works.

(Serik has not yet decided that he wants to go kill Melkor. Irikaino is pretty sure he is going to decide that he wants to go kill Melkor, but she's in no hurry to have that confirmed, because fighting gods is still dangerous no matter how troublesome the god, and in fact is arguably more dangerous precisely because this one is so troublesome. So they might as well take the time to prepare.)

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The orf fills her in as things occur to her - Balrogs are like so, Thuringwethil does the following stuff with bats, other Valar are reputed to have done this and that, his lordship can pull off these interesting tricks -

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So many interesting tricks his lordship can pull off. Irikaino is increasingly glad of the thoroughness of her mental defense spell.

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But mostly the orf brings up her baby. Her pain-free, oath free baby who is all hers! Her baby who can chew on carrots with her early, sharp teeth and who is still almost totally silent except for the occasional emphatic Ba! and Umweh! but is understanding more and more words!

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Irikaino thinks the baby is cute. She is all right with watching the baby sometimes if Beka and Serik are up to non-baby-watching-compatible activities.

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The baby is in fact very ugly, but in a cute way like overbred dogs or rhinoceroses, but Beka's not going to contradict Iri. And as the baby begins to pay more attention to her surroundings than her feet, "put her in a nest nearby" becomes a less viable solution and Irikaino's help is much appreciated!

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Baby-watching is totally compatible with designing useful spells and godslaying checklists.

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And after a few more months, Serik contemplates whether or not he would like to kill Melkor, and he is not consumed by violent rage but he still totally wants to kill Melkor.

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"I love you."

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...he grins. He kisses her.

"I love you too."

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Kiss!!!

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Mmmmmmm kiss. He has the very best orf, and she loves him, and everything is great.

It's a good thing Irikaino is watching the baby right now.

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So good!

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Mmmmmmm. He loves his orf so much. He is going to kill a god for her because he loves her.

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It's so good!

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It is!

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What should I do if you lose but I get away?

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"...good question."

There are a lot of ways 'lose' and 'get away' could shake out - he's hardly planning to bring Beka along when he goes - without him, Irikaino would have to keep the mountain going by herself, and she'd hate that, but he's not sure how much Beka could help...

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I'd probably like the torturing swans part more than she would but that isn't saying much.

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"Sorry." Kiss. "Maybe we'll figure out how to make the spell self-sustaining before it comes up."

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I probably wouldn't be very good at torturing swans anyway. One time somebody thought it'd be funny to make me torture my mom but I guess I hit her too hard 'cause she died.

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...he hugs her and kisses her forehead.

(If it'd been him, that would've been on purpose. But Beka isn't him.)

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It was sorta on purpose but I would've been in lots of trouble if it didn't look like an accident.

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Snuggle. "I love you. I'm sorry you had to kill your mom."

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Snuggle. "She's an Elf, she can be alive again sometime in Valinor."

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"Still."

He is going to kill Melkor. He is going to kill Melkor so much.

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"I love you."

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"I love you too." Kiss.

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Kisses are so good.

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They are! You know what else is so good? Beka. Beka is so good. Best prettiest most delightable orf.

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Sooooo delightable.

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So delightfully delightable!

 

He works on making the foundation spell self-sustaining, and manages a few tweaks that cut the necessary frequency of torture from about once a week to about once in six. He works on generic versions of assorted godslaying options, and information-gathering spells which may be useful to the endeavour. He works on the problem of steadying continents which may be inclined to crumble. He delights his orf and hugs her baby and reads to them from the books in his library and gets along with his daughter better than he ever has before.

And then, when there are no obvious preparations left to be made, he starts working on interdimensional transit. He could probably spend another year just on polishing potential godslaying spells, but it's entirely possible that he'll show up and discover that none of them work and he has to invent a new one from scratch under time pressure.

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Beka is delighted to spend all her time being delighted. It's delightful.

Kat gets older! She says 'Mama' and 'Iri' and 'Serik'! She says 'flower' and 'sleep' and 'food' and 'no'!

She says "chase! Chase!" and goes running off and Beka chases her.

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It's a very chase-friendly castle. So many places to run through. Gardens! Courtyards! Hallways! The ballroom! The wide expanse of grass that separates the castle from the lake!

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Chase chase chase chase catch toss catch put down chase chase chase.

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The lakeshore! (The lake is so pretty.)

The little village of pretty little cottages where the swans live when they are human-shaped and not currently being bothered!

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"Kat baby maybe don't go that w-"

She's going that way.

Beka chases her faster.

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A long row of cottages with their doors and windows firmly shut -

- and sitting outside the very last one, a woman in a beautiful fur-trimmed white dress, who jumps to her feet in alarm when she hears Kat coming.

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"Kat come back here don't bother the lady -"

"CHASE," Kat insists, runrunrun.

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The lady is now staring at Kat in a combination of bafflement and horror.

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Beka puts on a burst of speed and catches her child, who immediately begins kicking, about fifteen feet in front of the cottage.

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"- what - who - are you," she says, staring. Wondering if these people are somehow responsible for the drastic reduction in torture lately. Wondering if that's his child, and if so what in the world he did to it.

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She's not his. She's supposed to look like that.

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...did this person just read her mind - she sits down abruptly and bursts into tears.

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- I'm not very good at the languages here yet. Sorry, I won't let her run in here again. She backs away, wiggling Kat in her arms.

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The lady in the nice dress is still very upset but she doesn't try to do anything about them leaving.

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Beka goes and chases Kat till Kat is tired indoors, and then goes looking for Iri.

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"What is it?"

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Kat went to the swan place and bothered a swan and I think I upset her.

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"Oh."

Upset swans is - sort of a difficult problem to solve, considering.

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Well, yes, but usually it isn't me upsetting them.

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"Do you know - how -?"

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She didn't seem to like that I was reading her mind? And she was really confused about Kat being an orc and a kid and stuff.

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"Understandable, I suppose. He doesn't really - tell them things. Do you think it would be any use if I went and talked to her?"

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Maybe, yeah.

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"I can try it."

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Thanks, I didn't mean to bother her.

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She nods.

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And Beka goes off to sing songs in a tree.

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And Irikaino goes to the swans.

It's the newest, Luar, who Beka met. She does not really want to talk to Irikaino. But she does peer out her half-shuttered window long enough to say, "You can tell her that - it's all right, just don't do it again -"

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Do what, the mind reading thing?

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Yes, I think so.

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Okay. Should I not listen to the other swans either?

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It's hard to tell and I'm not sure they'd be honest if I asked but it seems plausible that they might want their privacy - they have so little else -

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I used to sometimes go to Angband prisoners who'd done something Melkor wanted to encourage, and sing to them and stuff, but this has not seemed like that would be a thing, am I right?

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I think it would probably not be a thing.

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Okay. I'll make sure Kat doesn't wander there again.

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Thank you.

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You're welcome.

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And Serik finishes his interdimensional transport spell.

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That's a little nervewracking!

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He hugs her.

"I'll be fine," he says, "I'll kill him and come back and tell you all about it."

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Snuggle. Okay. Kill him good and dead, I love you. Kiss.

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Kiss. "I love you too."

And he goes. In the form of a breeze, since that seems hardest to detect, and with his new spell-senses open to see everything around him, whether mind or matter.

He should end up somewhere in the sky within a mile or so of where Beka left from, but he's never tried this before so he isn't totally sure about the details.

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Yep, that sure is a dark evil very magical fortress. 

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Anybody around who's obviously a god? From the descriptions, it sounded like he'd kind of tend to stand out.

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Several! One is definitely the biggest one.

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A completely innocuous breeze circles the fortress. Nothing out of the ordinary going on here, nope.

And he reaches for power -

- and he doesn't have enough.

That hasn't happened in two thousand years. But there it is, clear as day. The whole hurricane force of his foundation spell's entire output is insufficient to kill Melkor.

But it's a fairly simple trick, if he can power it.

And pain is not a scarce resource around here.

He spreads out, inhabiting the air currents throughout the entire fortress. And anywhere he finds someone in pain, he picks up the power and feeds it into his foundation. More and more, spinning up into a storm of power ten times, a hundred times as big as he's ever touched.

If he was anyone else it would be insane to even think of trying to handle this much. If he fucks it up, he won't need to trip some kind of divine deadman switch to crumble the continent; it will be in pieces and on fire.

But Serik Tanaikon is very, very good at handling pain magic.

He picks it up.

He - makes - Melkor - stop.

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Angband crumbles.

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Most of the people in Angband have not done anything to piss him off. He dissolves stone into air, sweeps people away on the breeze - the continent is trying to fall apart too, as predicted; he holds it together -

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Sauron instructs the orcs to disobey, inconvenience and if possible destroy whoever is doing this. Then he flees. So do the other Maiar.

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Sauron dies. A lot of other Maiar also die, although his Beka wanted him to spare the lady Thuringwethil and it's pretty easy to tell which one that is.

He clears away the remaining rubble of Angband, heals all the prisoners and puts them on the far side of that mountain range over there, and in a moment of spiteful whimsy he levels the former location of the fortress for several miles around and adds grass and wildflowers and songbirds and squirrels and deer and rabbits.

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(Lady Thuringwethil laughs.)

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That seems to be that, just about. He relaxes his hold on the continent now that it's done trying to fall apart, and glances over it to see if he missed any minor earthquakes. Doesn't look like it, but - what's that going on up there on that icy bit?

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People. Walking across it for some reason.

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The nearly-negligible tremors that escaped his hold on the continent have shaken loose some snow and there is starting to be an avalanche.

 

The avalanche pauses.

 

I don't mean to pry, but what are you all doing here? he inquires. It really doesn't look comfortable.

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- trying to get to the other side, someone says without missing a beat.

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Oh. Want a lift?

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That would sure be convenient.

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He decides that it would probably be startling and disorienting for them all to turn into breezes and fly there, so he carefully separates a chunk of ice from its surroundings and picks it up and moves it smoothly through the air, careful to keep everyone steady and shield them against the wind.

Where to? he asks, with a vague impression of the current state of the continent - these guys over here, those guys over there, some underground cities that were a bit of a pain to keep stable, annoyingly perception-alteration-attempting hidden forest kingdom, field of wildflowers on former site of evil fortress.

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- let's go with none of the populated places, they might get startled, and not near the evil fortress. 

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It's not an evil fortress anymore, I tore it down and put in bunnies. But sure.

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- why did you do that.

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Because just killing Melkor didn't turn out to be quite satisfying enough.

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I see.

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Anyway, how about I put you down over here.

Here they are, a ways south of the end of the icy bit. He lets the chunk of ice settle onto the ground, conjures a little more ice to fill in the gaps so it's firmly seated and not at all inclined to tip, conjures warm cozy blankets for anybody who looks cold and tables laden with food for anybody who looks hungry, both of which turn out to be most of the people present -

- and he still has a bit of power left over from what he grabbed to kill Melkor with, so he designs and builds a huge gorgeous castle, doing the architecture in one sweep and the furniture on the second and the lighting and miscellaneous decor on the third. It rises out of the ground a couple hundred feet past the forward end of the now-settled flying ice chunk.

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They stare. 

 

thank you.

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You're welcome, he says cheerfully. Can't stay, my girlfriend's going to worry if I'm not back soon. Anything else you need before I go?

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- what's your name?

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Serik Tanaikon.

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Thank you.

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Welcome!

And he turns his attention back to the orcs. Wow there are a lot of orcs. And they are all in terrible pain. Since it's there and all, he keeps picking it up and feeding it into his foundation spell. There is not really enough water in the healing fountain to give it to all of them. Maybe he should just duplicate the healing fountain, except that right now he's pretty sure he shouldn't push his luck by trying to pick up another big chunk of power right away. He's real good at this but not literally infinitely good.

He goes home and rematerializes and hugs his Beka and shows her the memories.

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I loooooooooove you! Snuggle snuggle snuggle.

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I love you too. Snuggle. Snuggle snuggle.

Kind of pisses me off that all the orcs are still sworn to serve him and stuff, he adds after a minute. And all in pain still. Although I guess as long as there are orcs around I don't really need my swans anymore...

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If he's dead the swearing to serve him goes away. The other oaths to hate Elves and stuff'd still be there though.

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Which is annoying but I'm not gonna try to do anything about it this minute.

He has some important snuggling to catch up on.

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Snuggles! Snuggles and loves! She can osanwë him the second thing.

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Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee yes he loves her too look how much. So much. He killed a god for her and everything. And tore down Angband and put in bunnies.

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Bunnies!!!!

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They are very cute bunnies. And very pretty wildflowers.

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You're so great.

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Yes I am. And I love you.

So many snuggles.

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Snuggles~~

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He loves her so much. She is his favourite.

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They could do something delightful to celebrate that!

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Ooh yes definitely. All the delightful things.

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Marvelous.

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He has the best orf.

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And she has the best lord of the Howling Mountain!

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She does, it's true.

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Walking into that snake's face was the best thing ever.

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Yes. His orf makes such good decisions.

 

"So do you want to be my practice round for lifting oaths - the magic won't help me put together a spell unless I've got an idea of what I want to do and an example of what I want to do it to, and you've got some oaths I don't think you'd miss -"

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I would love to be rid of whatever the fuck they are!

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"Thought so." Kiss. "All right."

He picks up some power. He asks it how you erase an oath.

...erasing an oath is kind of costly, power-wise. He pulls enough power to build a permanent spell for doing it, because that's going to be more cost-effective in the long run than wrestling the hurricane for it every single time.

It takes six hours to build the spell, and then he wipes out Beka's oaths and kisses her again. "Love you. My Beka."

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Aaaaaaaall yours!

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Scoop-snuggle-kiss.

Hmm. He kind of wants to figure out how to duplicate the healing fountains too, give everybody healing water, but it's so convenient having orcs over there in Arda experiencing constant pain for him to pick up whenever he needs some. Maybe he'll duplicate the healing fountains after he figures out how to make his foundation spell self-sustaining.

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They might not all want it. There's a lotta orcs and the grownup ones are used to it.

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I guess. All right, I'll figure out the healing fountains, then.

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Nuzzle.

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Nuzzle. Endless cozy affection. Idle contemplation of magic.

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Are you gonna de-oath the orcs and put in the healing fountains all at once?

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"Mm, probably, why?"

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Just wondering. You're gonna be this mysterious force that sweeps in and does a ton of unrelated shit and then fucks off!

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Giggle. "Yep! I think I confused the fuck out of those ice-hiking Elves. A little bit on purpose but I feel like they probably won't mind too much all things considered."

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Probably not!

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(He once again smugly remembers the bunnies.)

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She laughs.

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"What can I say, I'm very proud of my bunnies."

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Melkor would've hated them!

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"Yep!"

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So much better than just cratering the place.

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He giggles. He remembers telling the person who asked him why he'd torn down the evil fortress and put in bunnies that it was because just killing Melkor didn't turn out to be quite satisfying enough. He giggles more.

"Wonder how those guys are doing. Maybe I'll look them up after I fix all the orcs."

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Oh, those are probably the bunch of Elves who got left behind when his lordship's boyfriend and his bunch sailed over.

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"Mm?"

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Some Elves wanted to leave Elfland so they killed a buncha people and stole boats but then his lordship's boyfriend's dad - I guess his lordship's dead now, uh, his name's actually Prince Nelyafinwë - anyway his dad set the boats on fire so everybody they didn't bring in the first wave had to go the long way.

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"Huh. Sucks to be them."

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Not anymore I guess! Kiss.

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Giggle. Kiss. "It's kind of fun being helpful!"

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Nuzzle. Did you put Prince Nelyafinwë somewhere he can go find his Elf boyfriend? He has an Elf boyfriend who was one of the ones who got stuck.

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"I just kind of dumped all the prisoners somewhere that they wouldn't run into any orcs unless somebody crossed some mountains. Same general area as where I put the ice-climbers, but not exactly near each other, and there were other Elves around too. Should I go check on him too when I'm in the neighbourhood?"

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Why not? I was planning on trying to rescue him so I could go crash with his family without getting shot, before the snake happened.

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"Sure, then." Kiss. "Love you."

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Love you!

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Perhaps it is time to delight his orf some more.

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Ooh yes it could be that time!

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It's a good time for it to be!

 

He figures out how to duplicate the healing fountain. He builds a healing-fountain-constructing spell. He rearranges the castle to put one in an easily accessible courtyard. He kisses his orf.

He visits Arda again, three weeks after the death of Melkor.

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Most of the prisoners have killed themselves. Most of the relocated Elves are hanging around searching for food and singing.

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He finds concentrations of orcs and puts healing fountains near them and clears away their oaths. Then he puts healing fountains near every other significant settlement on the continent, because why not. Last of all, he puts one next to the castle he made for the relocated Elves.

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Orcs react to de-oathing mostly with confusion.

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Fine by him.

Does he have any chance of looking up Prince Nelyafinwë? He has a vague idea of which Elf that was, but isn't sure he'd recognize him after three weeks of recovery. Well, maybe he's one of the dead ones. Is he one of the dead ones.

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He is not!

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That's something. Maybe he has actually found his secret Elf boyfriend and is with the relocated Elves, that's reasonably easy to check. And if he's not there and not in any other easily-checked outdoor location on that quarter of the continent then who knows.

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He's still with the recently released prisoners. The relocated Elves don't seem to have found them.

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Hmm.

Hi, I'm Serik, I killed Melkor, he says. Are you Prince Nelyafinwë? My girlfriend is wondering how you're doing.

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- it's a pleasure to meet you. We weren't aware there was anyone around who could, uh, just kill Melkor.

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There wasn't. Some kind of snake monster showed up in Angband and sent a bunch of people to other worlds, and one of them landed on me and now she is my girlfriend and I love her very much and Melkor made her parents torture her when she was a kid so I killed him and tore down his fortress and replaced it with a beautiful field of wildflowers with deer and songbirds and cute little bunnies. I am not a good person but I'm kind of enjoying this 'kills evil gods, does helpful stuff' gig. Need anything?

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Can you reembody the dead.

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Haven't tried yet but probably, why?

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Lots of people are dead and the god who does that is terrible at his job.

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Oh, that sounds like it sucks. Any chance he'll hand them over if I ask politely?

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Not really. But if you were interested in doing it people might not go there in the first place.

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Then sure, I'll build a spell for reembodiment.

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Thank you!

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Do you want to be put in touch with anybody - there's a bunch of Elves who I found walking across that ice bridge and brought over to this side, and I think I heard you had something to do with them?

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No. Where did you put them, exactly?

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He sends a view of the continent: ice bridge in the far northwest, relocated ice-climbing Elves also in the northwest but south of the icy mountainous bits, slightly populated lake over here, relocated prisoners in the same general corner of the continent as all that but more to the southeast.

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If it would be convenient to tell the people at the lake that you put the prisoners here I imagine they'll send aid. Thank you.

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Sure, I'll do that.

He turns his attention to the people at the lake. He finds a place nearish their settlement but not actually in anybody's way and raises a healing fountain there. It's very pretty. Then, because he is bored of being an air current by this point, he materializes and perches on the edge of the fountain and waits to see who shows up to chat.

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Elves! Looking a bit stressed. Armed.

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"Hi!" he says, letting the meaning of the words be a public thought. "I'm Serik. I killed Melkor."

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I see. That's good of you.

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"Guess so," he agrees. "Anyway I rescued all the prisoners while I was at it and the ones who haven't killed themselves so far are -" he sends the location, just this side of the mountains between here and the bunny fields.

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- thank you.

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He shrugs. "You're welcome. And this is a healing fountain. They're handy."

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What do they heal?

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"Illness and injury."

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Do they require any kind of maintenance or care on our parts -

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"Nope, if you wanted to destroy them it'd take some serious effort and if nobody does they'll still be going three thousand years later."

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Elves seem not especially impressed by this but nod.

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Yeah, for once he might not be the oldest one in the room. Now there's a thought.

"Anyway, need anything else while I'm here? Food? A castle? A ride to the former site of Angband?"

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If food is convenient it would be appreciated.

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"Sure."

He makes food appear. Lots and lots of food. It seems to be pretty trivial.

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They are appreciative. Is there anything we can do for you?

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"Not really! Thanks, though."

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- you're welcome.

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"Bye."

He goes home to his girlfriend. Looks like Prince Nelyafinwë has not been reunited with his secret Elf boyfriend.

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Aww. Oh well.

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He scoops up his girlfriend and snuggles her. "Yeah. He seemed okay when I talked to him, though -" he sends her a summary.

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Oh good! Snuggle. Nobody should have to have that much of his lordship's personal attention. I'm glad he's okay.

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And nobody else will have to have that much of his lordship's personal attention again, because Serik murdered him.

Snuggle!

"If I work on reembodiment I'll have to do it over there, can't work on a spell for things there aren't any of around and there are no dead Elves here."

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And me and Kat don't work even though we've got the same kinda soul because we're alive?

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"Yeah."

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Okay. Will you put back orcs? The Elf god never puts back orcs.

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"Don't see why not."

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Kiss!

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Kiss! Best orf.

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Perhaps it is time to delight her again.

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It is! It is time for that.

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And what a good time it is.