No. I haven't told you anything really bad, nothing they wouldn't already have guessed...

Nod.

I expect I'll be more stable once I've had a chance to be around more people, by the way. That's part of why I'm trying to get this done soon.

I understand. Is a week too long?

No, I should be okay. Reminding herself that he's hurt in the particular way that leads to claiming not to have preferences will haul her back from basically any freakout; it's not pleasant to think about, but she can keep it in mind enough to forestall them, too, for that long.

He catches most of that.

He's not claiming not to have preferences, he just actually doesn't know what'll be worst and is too tired of guessing to try anymore. He doesn't correct her.

I'll spend most of it asleep, if that helps. I'm going to try healing a bit for them.

I'll be okay either way. It is nice to have company, but do what you need to.

What's your ideal social environment? How many people, what's your relationship to them...

That only gets a little flinch. Kobolds come in tribes of about a hundred people, who spend almost all of their time together and know each other really well - enough to get by without talking for nearly everything. Speaker's a pretty important position - we say sometimes that the chief stands for the tribe but the Speaker stands for the people in it - and I'm very used to that, we knew I was going to be one when I was nine, but I don't think I need it.

Okay. So joining the Noldor wouldn't work even if everyone were satisfied you weren't an Enemy, but we can definitely have more people around.

Slightly shaky nod. Yeah. I think I can be okay without that exact thing, but I expect I'll need at least, like, ten or fifteen people that I'm reasonably close to. One is much better than zero but I don't think it'd be enough even under better conditions.

Can you explain what upset you about that question?

I'm not sure I'm in a good enough place to get used to a whole new culture, that's going to be really hard.

I can make them get used to yours.

She is momentarily horrified but shuts that down hard. Uh?

It sounds like we're a lot more adaptive and excited at opportunities to learn new things and live new ways than kobolds are. And we have people in relatively good psychological health. Having some of them learn the ways of life that you're familiar with might be easier than having you learn ours.

Oh. Okay. That doesn't sound like the kind of thing you need to describe as 'making people do things'.

I can avoid that kind of language since you have negative associations with it. I make people do things by smiling winningly and asking, I've never hurt someone for not doing something I asked and people don't obey me because they're afraid of me or anything.

Manipulating people into doing things can be violence, too, if they aren't things the people would actually want to do on their own, that's something Speakers have to be careful about. But that sounds at least generally okay.

I have never heard of Speakers but I agree that's something to be very very careful about. 

Relieved grin. Good.

Speakers are kobolds who can talk - the most direct application of that is that we help with communication between tribes, but since we have to know everyone really well in order to do that, we also help with interpersonal problems within the tribe if they get bad enough or complicated enough, and generally keep an eye on everyone as individuals and make sure they're getting what they need, as opposed to the chief who's in charge of things that affect the tribe as a whole.

That sounds kind of like what I used to do before my tribe had to go to war.

Oh?

Against the person who made Angband.

Nod. I'd assumed that, when you mentioned earlier that you'd been fighting a war. I meant before that, if you wanted to tell me about it.

I am not sure there is much to tell. I solved interpersonal problems and made sure everyone had what they needed and if there were things getting in the way of them thriving those things got fixed.