"Yes, certainly!"

One of the nearby restaurants has a private room, which he leads them to after motioning for the remaining hawk-riders to join them.

He frowns when Nidela comes in. "Are you unwell?"

She is not, in fact, holding up well at all - she's unsteady on her feet and her thoughts are small, fractured things; speaking would be a herculean effort; she's having enough trouble just understanding when she's spoken to. She looks to Tyelkormo: Help?

"We're gonna step out for a bit, actually. Fresh air."

Imòla nods and turns his attention to the remaining Quendi with questions about the unfamiliar gods presented in their songs.

Nidela follows Tyelkormo out. It's still crowded outside the restaurant and the elves' attention is drawn back to them immediately; this definitely doesn't help.

Well, he will walk through them. What's wrong, what do you need?

Walking through the crowd is painful, but she's already following him and can't think of what else to do, can't even notice that she might want to figure that out. There are no thoughts; there's only the sight and sound of the crowd, and her decreasingly effective attempts to make any sense of them, and the lifeline thread of there's-Tyelkormo-don't-lose-track-of-him.

And some place without people?

She doesn't recover immediately, but she does begin to recover. After a few minutes, she has thoughts again, in some minimalist sense - wow that was unpleasant, she doesn't want to do it again - and eventually she pulls herself together enough to osanwë a little. Thanks. Sorry. I'll be okay.

Good.

And he sits and waits.

It's slow going. With effort, she can temporarily arrange part of her mind into a more functional configuration - she wants to know what happened; she wants to remember where she is and why she's there; she wants to reassure herself that this is happening for good reasons - but this leaves her worse off afterward; it's not in any sense a solution. The only thing to do seems to be to wait and let her mind put itself back together at its own slow pace.

I should sleep, she comes up with after another little while. She won't be completely recovered when she wakes up, but it'll speed the process up a little.

Okay. Back to our rooms?

Yeah.

She's going to have to move, it's going to suck...

He could pick her up. People will stare but apparently she's completely collapsed and won't notice.

She hasn't thought of this option and therefore has no opinion on it. She's really not looking forward to standing up, though.

Sure, he'll do that.

She's confused, and then she can't figure out what to do with her arms, but she's amenable to being arranged and clings securely once she is. Thank you.

The elves they pass find this startling; a few wonder if he's kidnapping her, but none of them try to stop him.

When they reach the gardens they find Ila pacing at the entrance, deeply annoyed. Give her to me. It's a demand, not a request.

He does. Remember that conversation where I said there's a war on and if people need things they need to communicate that?

Nidela relaxes considerably and begins recovering noticeably - though still not substantially - faster when faced with the familiar sensations of riding Ila rather than the unfamiliar ones of being carried.

I'm sure she told you she was done for the day. The cat heads off to their rooms, not waiting to see if Tyelkormo is going to follow.

No, she damn well fucking didn't. 

There is nothing he loathes as much as people who try to make it his fault that he was not sufficiently good at saving them from problems they never told him about. It probably comes through in his voice, but he manages to say "Fuck you, I have watched thousands of people I care about die, I have watched many of them die in my arms and if you can't handle something it is your own fucking responsibility to communicate that clearly, in advance, with an explanation of what you'll need. Don't you dare act like it's my fault I'm not Maitimo, Maitjmo's dead." in Quenya instead of anything anyone around here speaks.

He leaves.

Why the fuck does he even bother with people. 

Ila puts Nidela to bed and flops across her, watching the doorway.

He is in a slightly more relaxed mood by the time he rejoins the party. Yes, if that had happened during an orc attack, it would have been a disaster that endangered a lot of people, but it didn't, and it's possible she didn't know to expect it, and if he gets his hackles up every time someone's companion animal acts like he's a disappointment -

- slightly more relaxed mood, at least.

He sits down without comment.

Imòla is still going strong with the questions; his companions fill him in on what they've told him - they'd be in trouble if they couldn't read his mind, but as it is, the trickiest part for most questions is keeping track of how often they can use his first guess and still seem plausible. There is the occasional one where he doesn't even have a guess of how they'll answer, but they've managed to navigate those well enough so far.

Also, appetizers have been brought out, and dinner has been ordered - the restaurant's signature offering is several variants on a kind of flatbread sandwich with a spicy lentil filling; they got one of each.

Okay. 

Have we mentioned the 'the gods feel really strongly about killing people' thing yet?

He's not that convinced we're legitimate, yet. Close, though.

Okay. 

He doesn't talk.