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The grownups are all very busy, but the children are all bored.
Bored or having nightmares. But Tasárinon was not on a ship and did not see the people dying and has only heard it thirdhand and can't exactly have nightmares about the look in his mother's eyes - well, he probably could, but he hasn't - so he's bored, and he is drawing on the floor. It is an absurdly intricate drawing. He has been embellishing it for three days.
Brithombar. Landing outside the city and leading people Presidentward. Handing out chocolates on the way.
Maitimo watches him with quiet amusement, and watches Brithombar with great interest. The Elves make quite a procession.
He will in fact come out to greet them all in front of his palace-or-whatever-it-is. People are snapping pictures with giant bulky cameras.
Cam is not sure if they have smiling-for-the-camera here and it would not be very tonally appropriate, so he tries to look photogenic and serious. "Hello, Mister President," says Cam, "brought you some visitors. Finwë's grandsons."
"How's he?" says the President.
"The Enemy killed him," Maitimo says. "About a Year ago he sacked Valinor, put out the suns, murdered my grandfather, and then fled - we assumed for here. The Valar are still debating whether to do anything about any of this. I hope you'll forgive us our impatience. We want to serve in your war; how may we do that?"
"My condolences. Why don't you come inside."
"I'm going to go orc-catching," Cam says, "unless you want me to sit in for this. Where should I bring caught orcs?"
"Anywhere you can contain them," the President says. "And while you needn't sit in, the question of how they can aid us is rather tied to the question of whether you intend to."
"They're familiar with the state of my thoughts on that," Cam says, "I think?" He glances at Maitimo. "Do you feel able to represent me there?"
"I do," he says.
"All right. Thank you," the President says.
And then a siren blares and the crowd, pressing in, starts to scatter. "Air raid?" Maitimo says.
"Yes. I can show you where to go."
"No, I'm not gonna have trouble with bombs. I'll be back in a while," Cam sighs.
And he goes out in a nice cloaky shuttle - makes some cloud cover - and goes orc hunting.
There are lots of orcs dug in along the borders of the various Elven kingdoms. There's lots of land reduced to rubble beyond that. And beyond that there are cities full of orcs.
Well, he doesn't want lots of orcs, he wants a few orcs. Are there a few orcs anywhere.
Countryside up north? There are some villas, there are some orcs driving along mostly-deserted roads.
....Cam is going to perform an alien abduction on a carful of orcs. Will they pull over if they get a flat tire?
And if he makes a shuttle with a layer of osanwë-blockage around the car, quick as he can manage and still get the vehicle off the ground with successive layers of making, and he calls the shuttle up into his cloud cover lickety-split...? Any problems?
Okay cool. He wends back Brithombarward, though he doesn't plan to land or get very close while the sirens are going.
He gets his computer chewing on the complete written output of the nearest orc city. What's the condition of his shuttleful of carful of orcs?
They climbed out of the car to explore the shuttle. The kids are clinging to what must be their parents. Five kids.
...he should maybe have looked more closely and picked a car without kids in it. Well. The shuttle is fairly nonthreatening as alien abduction shuttles go. "You don't happen to speak Quenya, do you?" he radios in.
They do not happen to speak Quenya. They look confused and alarmed and try answering in their language.
...well, that'll help the translation software with the phonemes.
Eventually he gets it to spit out, "I apologize for this."
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