"Good night."

"Good night."

He keeps working for a few hours, wanders downstairs, wanders back upstairs - Findaráto's willing to talk about a unified attack.

Willing to talk with who?

You know, just once, you should be sleeping when I talk to you in the middle of the night, it'd be good for my peace of mind. 

Maedhros doesn't answer.

Don't fake it.

Who is Findaráto willing to talk with?

When Illia wakes up she has breakfast and then goes back to sketching city plans. She reluctantly discards the one she likes best as impractical under the circumstances and goes back to refining the rest.

He joins her about midday. "Need anything else?"

"Lunch would be good, at some point. Someone to talk architecture with, probably, I know how to see to it that a building doesn't fall over but not much more than that."

"My father has a passion for it but is sadly far too busy. I'll have someone whose time is in less demand sent in."

"Thanks. I hope to be able to have an enjoyable conversation with him on the topic when this is all over."

He smiles. "That sounds lovely."

"Mm-hm." (There is no doubt in her mind whatsoever but that they'll win this, eventually.)

And he goes to fetch her people who can talk architecture.

Oh, good, architecture. Illia doesn't have time to individually design lots of different buildings, but she can get a handful of versatile structure designs worked out, with some help.

The Elves find the idea very endearing and are delighted to help.

Endearing is probably not the least patronizing emotion possible but they're being helpful so Illia is careful not to let any suspicion show.

They are at least very helpful. They've built a lot of cities, it transpires.

Illia is careful to insinuate as much of her own aesthetic sensibility as plausible. It would be slightly awkward if it looked for all the world as thought it were an elven city, after all.

Elven cities at least have a fair bit of stylistic variance; she has lots of things to choose from even when she's using their ideas.

In case, it's probably going to take a few days at least to get the plans for the city drawn up.

Elves consider this no time at all and think it is very funny she's only been here a few weeks and is already planning to build a city, that's practically walking in the door and pulling out a sketchbook!

Which is funny, because if Fingon hadn't suggested it it probably wouldn't have crossed her mind. Not that she's sharing that.

After a while someone brings dinner, the Elves all start singing, and the planning committee disperses.

And Illia goes to bed, eventually, less tired but more content than she's been in a week or so.

She's awoken by the sounds of fighting outside, again. The orcs apparently surged forward in the night.

Killing orcs is not her favorite activity but it's also not difficult. Die, large numbers of orcs.

"The Enemy's just trying to make sure we're tired," he says, "I think. How's the city planning?"