She would've thought it was something more like 'ability to make thoughtful decisions', but maybe she's wrong about that one. C'mon, Tirinquo, let's go for a walk.

Have a nice walk!

Yeah, walk. She gets out of sight of them and sits and just breathes for a bit.

And Tirinquo will cuddle her.

"They wrong," they put together, after a little while."Kobold person. They wrong."

"Yeah." She hugs them tight, tucks her face against their shoulder. "They're wrong. We're okay."

Cuddles. And after a little while Tirinquo hauls Rána to her feet and leads her to one of the places they often go to eat lunch, where there are comfy chairs to curl up in by the fire.

There is a lot to do for the war. Everyone is still putting in very, very long hours.

That's fine. She doesn't really want to talk to Quendi right now anyway.

They're still there come dinnertime; Tirinquo is going over their vocabulary notes and Rána is watching the fire, listlessly.

They have found a way to use teleportation to distribute food more efficiently. At dinnertime it appears wherever people usually eat.

This is among those places; Tirinquo fetches it for them.

Rána isn't hungry. Tirinquo cuddles up next to her, worried.

"I'm okay."

Tirinquo doesn't believe her.

(The efficient food teleportation is letting them feed the Falathrim, too. They have been careful about displaying their capabilities but the Enemy is unlikely to find out about food appearing in distant cities. The shift after dinner is called sunset, though it stretches seven hours, and most people spend it practicing magic or weaving cloth or writing up and transferring information.)

Eventually it's bedtime, and she brings them home.

The shift after sunset is starlight; it is everyone's favorite. Most manual labor happens during starlight, and most forge-work, and there are extra guards on the walls.

The kobolds sleep through it, as usual.

In the morning, Rána is still withdrawn; Tirinquo gets them breakfast, and then sits with her for a little while and, when that doesn't seem to be helping, goes through their notes and composes a message and brings her and it to the workshop.

'Who Rána friend?' the message reads, 'Show where?'

It takes a while but someone eventually figures out that this probably means 'find Tyelcormo' and a minute later a grumbling Tyelcormo is summoned back from several hundred miles away again and tries to hide how much he hates this. What?

Rána blinks at him, then at Tirinquo. Uh.

...sorry?

I'm not mad at you. I like being out, and don't like being in the city, so whenever I get called when I'm out and thinking I can be out a couple more days and they're like 'come back to the city' it puts me out of sorts.

She relaxes a little. Yeah. So, sorry.

Tirinquo takes this cue to take her hand, put it in Tyelkormo's, and shoo the both of them back outside.

What's up?

People're awful? You knew that already, but.

Yeah, it's why I don't like coming back to the city.

Yeah. Wasn't thinking I could leave Tirinquo alone yet, or I would've gone out, too... not so sure I would've come back, either. Sigh. Go for a fly?