They've left him alone in his cell.
He can't really be said to be lucid but he has very acute instincts for when there's someone and when he's alone - it's the last of his senses to depart him - and he's alone.
And then suddenly he isn't.
They've left him alone in his cell.
He can't really be said to be lucid but he has very acute instincts for when there's someone and when he's alone - it's the last of his senses to depart him - and he's alone.
And then suddenly he isn't.
Nidela is asleep; Ila is not, and growls softly if anyone enters the room.
Around midnight, Nidela wakes up and makes her way to the kitchen for a snack, still leaning fairly heavily on her lynx.
He is not sleeping, just hanging around in his room twiddling his thumbs. Mission success, yay.
Most of the food requires preparation that's beyond her right now, but there's a little basket of rolls; she sits on the floor and leans against Ila and eats.
After a little while she notices that the light is on in one of the rooms, and makes a guess of whose. Hey. All well? She still sounds pretty exhausted.
Yeah.
Uh, the thing that happened - if that had happened when we were ambushed by orcs, or if there's another big battle, or if the Enemy tries some stuff to scare us, we need to know what's going on with you so you and other people don't get hurt.
Yeah, okay.
Maybe not right now, unless you have questions?
Ila knows how to take care of me when it happens, and it's usually not this bad.
Not scared so much as - I like knowing what people need from me, I don't like being in a position where I have no idea how to not make things worse...
You didn't make things worse. I'm still fuzzy on some of it but as far as I remember you did everything right.
It's okay.
Usually, I'm either someplace safe or with Ila, or both. So even if that happens I'm not stuck. But when they came and said you were singing and I had to go with them, I was too tired to remember how to say no - that doesn't happen very often anymore.
And she finishes eating and makes her way back to bed. She's still asleep - and Ila's still growling, if less emphatically, at anyone who gets too close to her - when their guides arrive with breakfast.
They introduce themselves as Defiyi and Kenozì and set out the food - tea and peach juice and fruit-filled pastries and acorn bread with sweet potato hummus and boiled eggs - and one of them brings a covered basket up to Nidela's room - don't you dare wake her up, I have claws and I know how to... oh, food, yes, you can leave that right there - and they join the Quendi for breakfast.
"Would you like to visit the zoo first, or see some of the other things the city has to offer?" asks Kenozì.
"All right." And they take turns telling them about other things they might do in the city afterward - museums and themed gardens and art galleries and theaters and sporting events for elves and their animal companions and maybe not everything they could've found to do in Tirion, but a pretty good variety of options nonetheless.
And then breakfast is done, and they clean up and put the leftovers away in the kitchen for Nidela and lead the way to the zoo.
Most of them are at least passably content. Some want to be released. Some have other complaints or requests - different food, different neighbors, more cover in their enclosures, more time with their keepers, to be bothered by the keepers less often, and so on; a few of them complain of medical issues that haven't been noticed, and a few more take the opportunity to give more details about medical issues that the keepers have been treating. Aside from being kept against their will, none of the animals seem to be being mistreated; as before, it's fairly obvious that the elves are at least trying to do right by them.
Which is good, because he has orders not to pick a fight, not if they're getting anywhere on convincing the elves to stop starting wars. He translates. He doesn't make anything the animals say more diplomatic but he doesn't make it less so either.