Nah, and they were really stressed at first, but I think they're - not miserable, now. They might be happier if one of your tribes would take them in, dunno. 

I really don't think that's possible; a stranger with nobody to vouch for them would generally be turned away even without strange magic on them - if Little One was coming back, maybe. But if they're coping with that at all, something strange is going on, I don't know what to tell you.

Little One's pretty good at helping them out.

If you say so.

I mean, if you have any ideas, I'm listening.

I can't know what you could be doing better if I don't know what you're doing now - let me ask. They shoo one of the others away from Rána and whisper in her ear; she makes a face and whispers back, and receives a worried look and a hug.

Drugged, that'd do it, the kobold reports. Must be a pretty high dose, too. I can guess at stuff if you have questions, but it's a really unusual situation.

Are the drugs going to be needed forever?

I'd guess not? Taking them off of them is going to be hard, though.

Can you gradually lower the dose or something?

Mmhmm. Even with that. Kobolds who aren't Speakers almost never get over thinking of other kinds of people as dangerous to be around.

But they usually don't spend years around other kinds of people in the first place, right?

Right, which is why there's a chance. It's still going to be hard.

Okay. What do they need in the meantime?

That drug makes it hard to notice danger, so they really need to be kept safe, and that'll also help when you try to taper them off of it - they'll still remember what happened, and if they let you take a risk with them that they usually wouldn't, they'll remember that later and might not take it well. If they're familiar with the drug from before, that'll help - a lot of us are, but I don't know what their tribe was like - but only so much. Having them make friends might help, or it might be the kind of thing they freak out over later because they wouldn't usually have taken the risk... without knowing them, I can't really guess which, but it's probably worth trying; if they're going to freak out over that they're probably not going to be able to come off the drug anyway. Um... oh, if you can get them to keep a steady schedule, that'll help, and if you can get the people around them to keep one that'll help even more, knowing what's going to happen and not having to deal with anything unexpected will help when they start trying to taper off.

Makes sense.

Yeah. And Little One's probably managing it pretty well, too.

Yeah.

Tough situation. I don't think there's anything better you could have done.

I tried talking the elves out of killing him but it didn't work. Could've teleported the guards, I guess.

It's pretty shocking that talking to the elves worked for anything at all, really.

I mean, we read their minds a lot to figure out how to convince them.

Even with that I'm surprised. Glad you tried it, though.

Yeah.

Yeah. They scoot back over and snuggle up again.

Hopefully all the war's'll stop, but still, keep being careful.