They weren't especially expecting him to. Imòla notices his mood, too, and leaves him alone.

"And in that last song," he asks a few minutes later, "what were those creatures?"

Those, the elves are told, are orcs and Balrogs, servants of an evil god who the Quendi are warring with. It is categorically an evil against the gods and against creation to kill people, even lesser people who live short lives, but orcs and Balrogs are all slaves of the Enemy, and until he is dead there is no other solution. Still, of course, they show mercy wherever they possibly can. After all, it is the will of the gods that all creatures live their full spans; they would not have given short-lived races a hundred years if they meant for them to see only twenty. 

"Yes, of course." They only go to war when it's unavoidable, but reacting when trees are harmed or the ecosystem is damaged isn't avoidable, obviously. "And what aid have the gods provided you for this war?" because obviously they'd do that, if the Quendi are on such good terms with them.

Yes, they have magic weapons for the war, but they cannot give them out, and the gods gave them also wisdom and knowledge. They can teach the elves some of the things they have learned for the war, but the gods intend that it be deployed only in direst need, such as against an enemy who is trying to kill you. Nature is resilient, the gods made it that way, and they do not want all tree-harmers or ecosystem-disrupters killed; that compounds one loss with another and it is avoidable and it would be blasphemy to use the weapons of the gods in such wars.

Imòla's companions are bewildered and alarmed, but he gestures for them to calm themselves. "You have to know that that directly contradicts our covenant. Why exactly do you believe they want that of us?" Gods have been known to change their minds, though it'd be pretty unprecedented for them to do it about something so basic. It's much more likely that they simply expect different things of Quendi and elves.

Yavanna, the god who made trees, has over the ages come to be a great friend to Aulë, the god who made Dwarves, which cut down trees. Over the Ages they have come to understand that they are balanced parts of a whole. They can tell lots of stories about the friendship between these two gods and how it moderated their perspectives.

Imòla is skeptical, but listens, and slowly comes around - it is, as these things go, reasonably plausible. "And what would they have us do now, then?"

Continue their work to preserve the ecosystem, but do not engage in destruction to avenge it. To shorten another creature's gods-given span is a wrong unless done in self-defense, and the enlightened races should be considering how they can defend themselves without destruction as well.

Well, that's going to be neither trivial or popular - a lot of their society is set up to prepare or provide for wars, he thinks but does not say, and dismantling or repurposing it is going to be very hard - but he'll make it happen.

He spends the rest of the meal quizzing them further about Valinor and the gods.

Which, since they're mostly telling the truth, they can talk about and send over osanwë in great detail.

And eventually he draws the discussion to a close - he does have a lot of work to do tomorrow, after all.

Is there anything else they want to do while they're in the city? (What's this about talking to the animals, he does not ask?) Would they like him to arrange for a guide, as theirs seems to be indisposed?

Talk to the animals! Oromë gifted Tyelcormo with the ability and he will use it to determine if any of their animals need anything, if that's all right with them. And they would love to walk around and see beautiful places.

It is more than all right; they would very much appreciate it. He'll have someone sent to them first thing in the morning; for now, he assigns one of his escort to see them back to the gardens, and takes his leave.

Well. That is pretty much the result they'd hoped for. 

They go home to sleep.

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.

I think we convinced them. 

Good.

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.

Sure.

Sorry if I scared you.

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.