They can probably pick up names, maybe a bit more than that.

Mmhmm.

They're not as good at weaving as they are at carving, but they can put together an okay hat, while they're there.

And eventually it's lunchtime and Rána comes to find them, looking much improved.

The humans are happy to share lunch!

The kobolds are appreciative, and after lunch they head back to the Ñolofinwëan camp.

Which is as always very busy.

Yup.

Rána wanders around for a little while looking for spellcasting that needs to be done, to get a feel for the mood of the host.

They're okay. Exhausted and stressed, sometimes, but mostly okay.

Okay.

She makes her way back toward where the conversation group meets, keeping an eye on Tirinquo to see how they react to that.

Tirinquo's basically fine - worried about Rána, but not otherwise nervous about going back.

The Elves on break greet her and continue talking.

Rána's too nervous to pay very much attention to the conversation.

Tirinquo cuddles her, though, and that seems to help.

They're worried about ex-prisoners of the Enemy and whether there's a way to help them and whether Mandos can do it. They're worried about the other group of Men, who the Enemy appears to be trying to manipulate, towards what purpose remains unclear. They are impatient to get to Doriath, hopefully that can be worked out very soon. They are wondering how long it'll take the elven city to cease causing wars over trees and debating theology off a tangent from that.

Rána relaxes enough to follow some of that, and join in the conversation a little. She's hoping for more information about Doriath too; something bad happened with it with her magic and she wants to know why. The elves are probably going to be a problem for a long time, there are lots of elves and they don't talk to each other much, but if the cities stop starting wars that'll probably help a lot anyway.

Should the same expedition happen to other cities? Should elves be given a means of keeping in closer touch?

There should definitely be expeditions to other cities. (She stops for a minute to calm Tirinquo, who's following this well enough to find the idea alarming: no, no, we're not going, the Quendi are going, they'll be okay.) Making it easier for them to talk to each other might help, but only if they're really sure that the peaceful elves are going to convince the warlike ones rather than the other way around, which seems like a hard thing to figure out.

Yes, it really does. Shame they can't give the elves a way to talk to the Valar.

...that's probably not impossible, do they really think it'd be a good idea? It sounded like the first expedition had to lie kind of a lot.

If they weren't Doomed it'd be a really good idea, the Valar are legitimately against murder and war and are very obviously gods. What with the Doom it might be challenging.

...uh?

...oh, is it supposed to be secret? Fëanor did a lot of horrible things in departing Valinor and the Valar were really angry with him.

Nobody's really talked to her about Fëanor much, like, she sort of knows who they were and that's about it. What does that have to do with them?

Well, because of the horrible things he did, the Valar doomed him and everyone who followed him.

...okay.

She'd kind of like more details there but this doesn't really seem like the time or the place. What's the problem with having the elves talk to the Valar?