You've been fighting him for centuries. I've been here less than a week. I really want to live long enough to resurrect your brother and reduce the Enemy to his component whatever-the-fuck he's made of.

The Enemy knows approximately how good our scrying is and has lit the whole northern plains on fire and chosen this method of opening the war. I can only assume because he has something he does not want to give us much time to react to. Here are what we've known him to deploy - and he starts flashing memories of old battles and of the same creatures at rest and lumbering through the depths of Angband.

Ugh. Can she feel any of these things, if she coaxes the world to let her know of their existence in the relevant direction?

There are, in fact, many thousands of orcs headed in their direction. There are things that seem to match some of the other things he's showing. And there is very certainly something Else.

Lots of orcs. Lots of orcs. Some of these things, she shows him, and--a thing, I can't tell what it is but it worries me. She shows him what she got of the something Else.

He does not react. Thus why we're not having you out there. Can you do anything about the smoke and I assume accompanying magical cover?

Fuck the possible meteorological damage, there's already been volcanic eruptions. Have large quantities of wind, smoke, shoo.

"Ah," he says, and then Cáno, I think it can cross the crevasse.

"Holy fucking shit what is that thing." And will it just DIE if she tells it to.

It doesn't. The Elves wheel around to try to figure out how best to meet it.

Dammit. Will deep cuts open in its hide if she asks nicely?

That one works. It's an easy advantage for the Elves to follow up on, too. It writhes and breathes fire and knocks several people flying.

Okay, she's going to see if she can balance decapitating it with suppressing its fire.

She can suppress the range of the fire, but it seems to intensify, white-hot and scouring only the area directly in front of it. She manages to hack at its neck, but even several strokes aren't through it.

If she can't hack through its spinal column can she go for the arteries? And can she, hmm, spreading out the fire so much that it dissipates to harmless warmth seems unfortunately lethal in the intervening steps, can she redirect the fire away from people?

She can do that. They get more daring when they notice it's going around them. Every gash she opens in the dragon is stabbed and shot and hacked a second later. It writhes again, rolling and lashing across the ground and crushing everyone nearby.

Can she teleport the crushed people who are not yet dead here and heal them.

She can bring them back here, yes. Most of them aren't dead yet; the Eldar die slowly.

Once she's confident they're stable she's going to go back to ripping that thing's fucking throat out.

It runs. It takes one too many slashes, or perhaps one a bit too deep, and the dust and smoke roars up around it and it heads back north.

It will be lifted off the ground and unable to run.

It writhes in midair, sweeping dust into a storm around it, until the dust ignites and blasts cracks in the ground and surrounding area. The Elves by now are staying well back.

It will stay in the air and have its throat ripped out and she will carve through its soft underbelly up the inside of its ribcage and to its fucking heart.

"I approve of your approach to problem-solving," Maedhros says, watching it stop moving. "Are you all right? Orcs and Balrogs they're prepared to handle, you can take a break now if you need it."

"I'm great. Point me at something else."