Ugh. The kobold thought it'd be nearly impossible to get kobolds to stop stealing.

Yeah, it seems like they know it's dangerous, and they're not stealing because they need to, they don't go after food or anything. If they were going to stop I think they would have already. But maybe there's something we haven't thought of.

We can't just put them all somewhere no one minds, apparently they'd panic.

I bet; so would I.

Quendi must be unusually resilient or something. Ugh.

Yeah, maybe. If you can talk to them, that might help - I've actually been wanting to ask, do they really not talk? Since ours obviously does.

Very few of them can talk. It's rare and a big deal.

Ah. So talking to them might work.

Yeah. They know that stealing from elves gets them killed, I don't know if they realize that stealing harms people.

Usually it doesn't, exactly? How they do it, I mean. They don't take food or supplies or anything we really need, most of the time; they look for jewelry and shiny stuff like that. Which is upsetting, sure, but nobody's going to go cold or hungry over it.

The Enemy took some jewelry. Stealing harms people.

Okay.

Jewelry can be - something your grandmother who died before you were born asked your father to give to you, so you'd remember her, jewelry can be the first craft you ever pulled off by yourself, jewelry can be magic, it can do things, it can protect people, it can be something that someone worked a lifetime to get. Stealing. Harms. People.

Mm. One more firm knead, and then she scoots over and pats the bed to suggest that he sit up.

He is thinking about Formenos. He does not sit up.

She curls up next to him.

I'm sorry. I didn't know.

It's fine. Neither do they, probably.

Yeah.

Do you want to talk about it?

Not really. 

Okay. She rests her arm carefully across his back and stays there, not thinking about anything in particular.

And after a while he gets up. Gonna go for a walk. See you later.

Okay.

He does. He tries not to glare at people.

It's much less crowded in the city at night, and easy to avoid the places the elves are still congregating; if he wants to be left alone, that's not hard to accomplish.

Good. He walks for most of the night.