At least they've got help.

She stays for a little while, and then goes to take care of the horses - 'a couple hours a day' is quickly turning into most of her time being spent there, with Ila perched out of sight downwind, napping or people-watching.

As long as she likes it there, this suits everyone fine.

Good!

Quendi sing a lot even when no one has died, and they wear their hair very elaborately braided, and they are fighting an evil god, but other than that the city has a lot in common with elven ones.

This is actually pretty much okay, this time. People can be around, that's mostly fine, and when she's too overwhelmed for it to be, she can just mount up and let Ila take her home. The singing is pretty. The braids are pretty too; she notices quickly that they expect her to braid her hair, and tries it, and finds that it's far beyond what she can manage; she has a couple hats among the things she brought with her and tries wearing those instead.

This works fine - or, at least, no one comments and people smile at her.

Problem solved, then.

People do sometimes try to talk to her. Hiding out in the barn most of the time and spending the rest at home or out in the woods mostly brings it down to a frequency she can handle, but having to brave the mealtime crowd for breakfast and dinner is stressful even if nobody does.

If the King happened to see her he'd fix that but he mostly stays indoors and by necessity stays to the areas where the teleportation spell's been laid out.

And she's not really sure how much it's okay to bother him with things. Instead, she starts considering the logistics of having Ila go through the meal line for her - it should probably work, at least when they have things that can stand being packed into a saddlebag, which they usually do.

Once she starts doing that they'll just start bringing her meals.

Or that, that works too. Uh, oops?

Oh, no, the person who brings it back says, don't apologize - we should apologize for not having thought of it sooner - this is better, right?

Uh.

It is, thank you. You're sure it's not too much trouble?

Oh, not at all - can't do it for everyone but for people who mind as much as you do, certainly. There aren't many.

...yeah. Okay.

Okay. Thank you.

Everything okay? While I'm here?

She knows the answer to that one. It's: I'm fine, thanks.

...no? I mean, sometimes that's the answer, but not usually, not with a war on.

Right, uh.

Ila winds her way between her Nidela and the Quendi.

...yes, that's better.

I'm fine, really. Things aren't... like this, where I'm from.

And maybe they aren't really like this here, either, it might just be this straightforward but it might not, she might've just invited people checking on her every day or something similarly intolerable, but that's a different problem for a different moment, right now she needs to get this person to go away so she can eat.

The person will do that.

Oh good. She flops on her bed for a little while and eventually eats.

She's going to have to deal with this again at breakfast, isn't she.

No! Everyone can read her mind so the breakfast person knows to just drop off breakfast and leave.

...okay that is pretty awesome. Though she does still kind of feel like she's waiting for the other shoe to drop.