We'd have to be trying to avoid it.

The demesnes are visibly different from the surroundings, or would be by now if it weren't so dark. As it is the fact that they're less cold is the only visible change.

That was brilliant. Thank you.

I wasn't the one who did it.

It's a longer trip across than either of the other ones. One of the destinations is farther out, and another is currently hypothetical.

The Feanorian camp is nestled into the foothills of a mountain range, on the shore of a lake. There's a wall and some buildings and Elves are swarming everywhere, expanding both.

They're making progress fast. That's good, right?

They're really really capable. It's good when it's pointed at the right problems.

I was hoping it meant building defenses from scratch was easier than it sounds. But that explanation works too.

How close do you need to be to know if there's anything interesting to eavesdrop on?

When you have a hundred thousand engineers organized by telepathy under Maitimo with Macalaurë to sing them along you can get a lot done fast. We won't be as fast, but we can do it too. The problem is that really important things will be discussed over osanwë and moderately important things in their palace and both of those should be hard to get close to.

You can't just catch the moderately important things with super-senses?

Can, but not from more than half a mile up. We build to muffle sound, for the obvious reasons.

Half a mile...how low can we get before we're visible? If you get an outside view we can make the apparent temperature match the air, and it is still dark out.

It's going to be dark out forever, you'd better get used to it. And I don't think we'll be visible at that height. Though worst-case is they see us and shoot us down and then we have some very awkward explaining to do.

We'll know if they see us, I can watch for that while you're listening. Hopefully even they don't jump straight to arrows as soon as something looks odd.

Hovering over the biggest building and lowering, then?

Yep. And she watches nervously while they do that. The Feanorians are not looking straight up.

No connections suddenly solidify and point downward. It's a convenient method of detection, because from up here the Feanorians look like ants. Ants on a black background from across a four-lane highway.

Well, they're not looking, they're listening. There is a discussion going on about how many people to take somewhere.

They do also sound like ants.

Amber telepathically asks for updates as they happen.

Enemy offered them a parley, she says after a minute. Terms are that they can have a Silmaril and a year to evacuate the continent of civilians, and then they don't bother him, it's the Valar he wants to war with. They are considering trying for the evacuation time and Silmaril, there are apparently a lot of civilians.

 Does he not know about the oath?

Not sure. I assume both sides will be trying to sell each other out, but a year to get civilians clear might be worth it anyway, and it doesn't cost the Enemy much...

Other than the Silmaril. Once he doesn't turn that over, everyone knows the deal's off and can't pretend it isn't.

It's possible the Enemy'd give them a Silmaril. Not likely, but if he found a way to trap them or make them dangerous, or if Ungoliant's still around and he thinks it'd get her attention...

Do you know if the oath is going to make them negotiate even if there's a vanishingly small chance of it being a good idea?

No. Oath is to kill whoever has the Silmaril. If whoever had the Silmaril did not, you know, deserve killing, they'd be highly motivated to negotiate so that they could cease being sworn to kill them, and if they started pushing too hard on that interpretation of the Oath then they could be manipulated by it, but as it stands, the Oath is 'murder the possessor of the Silmarils', not 'get them back'.

So they're not magically compelled into any mistakes...and they're at least as informed as we are... maybe we'll all get lucky and they decide not to go for it.