Not from the Noldor. We don't exile people. Exiling people is evil.

That only helps at all if they can think of Quendi as their tribemates. I'm really weird for being able to do that. And even if they could it'd only help so much; they'd miss their tribes even more than I miss mine and we really can't just bring everybody here.

I guess not. 

I'm sorry. 

I'll be okay. It's just hard. She snuggles into the blankets.

He hugs her. Did you do all the things you meant to? 

She leans into the hug.

I decided to wait to talk to the linguists until you wanted to come with me, and I ended up just going to talk to Aulë instead of finding someone to ask questions of. And I didn't get a chance to look for something to help with the brightness. I did go to the linguistics guild, though, that's what reminded me of my friends.

Your friends are like the linguistics guild? I think I'd like them.

She grins, a little. Yeah, I mean the other Speakers. I'm not sure you'd like all of them but you'd definitely like us all together as a group - it's so important that we... sigh... they, remind each other of the things we know and of the language that when we see each other, we talk so much, about everything.

It sounds amazing. And you can't go any more?

Headshake. The way kobolds do it - most of the year we live with our tribes, scattered all over the place. And then every summer we all meet up together, all the tribes in the area, and everybody gets to meet with people from other tribes - for singing, for games, to learn more about their crafts and things, whatever they want. It's very important for a lot of reasons, and very well guarded, because my world really isn't safe. And that's when the Speakers get to meet, and they're usually in the middle of everybody, so there's no way I could stay with them without being seen.

Your magic can't make you look like anyone else? Or we can't go and say you're in our tribe now so it's allowed?

Headshake. It really doesn't work that way. Kobolds hide from strangers, it's how we keep ourselves safe, it's really, really important. And I count, now, since I'm exiled - that's what being exiled means, for kobolds, is that your tribe thought you were too dangerous to stay with them, even though being exiled means you have to be very, very lucky to live even another year. They were wrong about me being dangerous, but they still think that and the other tribes will listen to them, not me. And if a stranger shows up at the meetup they'll attack them and everybody will panic and there's a decent chance people will die, because if they don't attack them and panic and run away there's an even worse chance that people will die. It's awful, from the outside like this, but it's really important, from the inside; people need to be safe, and to feel safe, and in a world as dangerous as mine is, that's what it takes to have that; I don't get to hurt people just because I'm sad.

But you're not the only sad person. Lots of kobolds must get exiled. And they all die. So changing the way things are so it's not like that isn't just for you.

I don't think there's a better way. Most people who get exiled really are dangerous, it's not something that happens often or without a very good reason. Even murderers they'll try to work with if they think they can. With me, they thought I was hexed, which is very dangerous; if I had been, they'd absolutely have been right to send me away and not let me back, it's just that they were wrong about it.

Can you prove they were wrong?

Nope. They wouldn't - and shouldn't - let me close enough to even try, hexes can be dangerous at a distance if they're the wrong kind.

I'm going to think of a way, I just need to keep thinking.

She sighs and sits up and leans on him. I like that you're trying to help. It means a lot to me. But I don't think there's a solution to this one, and I really will be fine - I know everybody here tries to make things perfect, but I don't need that, I know how to be okay without it. Hug.

What are hexes? What do they do? And you're not okay, you were crying.

Hug. I will be okay, not I am okay. It's like - have you ever fallen down and scraped your hands on something rough?

Yeah.

And it took a while to heal, right? And it hurt, and it kept hurting sometimes until it was done, especially if you bumped it on something? This is like that. It'll heal, and I'm pretty good at taking care of myself the right ways to make sure that it heals well, but it still takes time, and today I bumped it on something, ow.

It doesn't take very long to heal at all, and the Valar can patch it up right away.

And it still shouldn't ever happen.

Nod. I'm not saying it should happen. I'm saying that if it does, sometimes the right thing to do is just wait and let it heal, instead of maybe hurting people by trying to fix it faster. Even for something pretty big, like this - it is going to be a while, maybe more than a year, maybe even a few years, before I'm really completely okay, but I'm okay with that. I'm going to be okay, now, I didn't have that before. Hug!

Hug. So what are hexes and what do they do?