Giggle.

"I suppose in Angband it wouldn't have been a great idea to have lots of long-term aspirations."

"Yeah my life trajectory was pretty much supposed to be 'have thirty babies and then somehow die probably 'cause there are suspiciously zero other orfs left over from last time still around'."

Nod. "Are there orcs from last time still around?"

"There were, when everybody got rounded up to go populate Angband, but I don't think there was anybody over maybe... fifty, sixty? left by the time I walked into the snake. That I met, anyhow."

...nod. "Macalaurë said you've adapted very quickly."

"It's nice here! It would probably be harder if I was adapting to, I dunno, sleeping in an eel pond or something."

"We drained all the eel ponds! They were terrible for morale."

She laughs and kicks her feet in the air happily.

And he smiles and shakes his head and leaves her to that.

"Told you that whatever the Enemy's plan is it can't be derived from her."

"You could have been wrong."

"But I wasn't."

"You were not. Are you going to sing for us while we're here? My people don't get that all the time, you know."

"Ooooh, yes, I should."

"Yes, you should."

He has his orf brought to the concert hall for the concert.

"Do I sing too or am I just listening?"

"Do you want to sing too?"

"Yeah!"

Could be subtly magic.

Right. "My brother objects that if a song you know is subtly magic and causes death forty-eight hours later or something then that would be really inconvenient. So just ones I've sung you, is that all right?"

"Okay."

"Sorry. With more time to plan we could, like, have you sing them to someone in advance."

"...someone who you didn't care if they died?"