He needs clarification of a lot of those words, but eventually nods. "Thank you. Do you have more questions for us?"

"Can you, uh, tell me what's going to happen to me? Just, um - am I a prisoner or am I going to be assigned to work somewhere or...?"

"You are welcome here. You are not a prisoner. We're going to stay out on patrol a while, though, we might not reach the planet's surface for some time. We do not need you to do anything though we will be eager to keep learning about you."

She is not super clear on what not being a prisoner entails, but she nods.

"I can definitely keep telling you things. I'd like to learn more about you and about your planet, too, but I don't think I know enough to know which questions I should be asking right now, exactly?"

"I can try to explain - long ago we lived on Valinor. The Valar rule there. Melkor is a Vala who likes to hurt people. They let him go and he went to Endorë to hurt people. And we went to Endorë to war with him."

"This war is ongoing?"

"Yes. It has been for many human lifetimes."

She nods. She is sort of used to intractable wars that might as well have been going on forever, though it does mean these people can probably only devote so many resources to fighting anyone else.

"You said the Valar rule where you're from? Are they - like you?"

"They are a different species. They cannot die."

"Oh. Well." So these people are ruled over by aliens. She frowns for a moment, trying to figure out how to ask about the extent of the aliens' control over them in a way that isn't completely thoughtless. The situation here might still be a major improvement; they seem to be treated nicely, if the quality of the ship is any indication. "So does this ship report to the Valar, then? You're still getting orders from them?"

"Oh, no, we - when we left Valinor we told them we would not listen to them anymore."

Confused frown. "And they accepted that?"

"They were not very happy but they did not follow us."

"Oh." Pause. "The Carthons probably wouldn't have let people do that, and the Alteri would have killed people for trying. But it's good that you got to try. So you're independent now, you only report to other Noldor? And, um, Eru, I guess?"

She is sort of unclear on how Eru fits into this, but you probably can't just stop listening to a being who can create Liars out of nothing.

"Eru doesn't tell anyone what to do, he just ...does things. We report to our King and he's a Noldor King, yes."

She nods, though she is not super sure she knows what a king is. But it's promising. She doesn't really know anything about the Noldor, but based on the available evidence she is pretty sure she would rather report to them than to house Tellari. 

"Oh, um, do you have houses here? The Alteri have a central command structure, but in practical terms it doesn't do very much, especially on planets like Earth that are outside the stellar network. The planets are controlled by councils that consist of leaders appointed by each house represented on the planet, and everyone has to follow the rules of both their local government and their house. Most of the laws vary by house. So uh, I was born under house Kendari, which has its own set of rules, and when I was sold to house Tellari I had to learn their rules, at least the ones that applied to me. Do you have - I don't know what words to use to ask about governmental structures, but - everyone just listens to the king, or is it more complicated than that?"

....he needs a ton of those words clarified! Eventually - " - so, we had one King and everyone listened to him, but after he was killed, there was a dispute over which of his children should be the next King. It was decided eventually in favor of -" he makes a slight face - "Nolofinwë, but we were loyalists of the house of Fëanor and we answer to them first - it mostly doesn't matter, the King wouldn't give orders that he wouldn't expect Lord Maedhros to agree with and Lord Maedhros wouldn't give orders that he couldn't get the King to support."

She is delighted to clarify words, and is delighted to receive clarification on who exactly everyone answers to. She isn't consciously aware of it, but she's smiling much more than she was yesterday, and in fact is smiling much more than she has in a long time. People generally don't give her political explanations of any depth - Liars don't know enough and Alteri don't care enough, as long as she knows which particular Alteri she's supposed to listen to when they give contradictory orders. This happens with uncomfortable regularity and is always terrifying.

She wants to know about Nolofinwë and Lord Maedhros and why this group is loyal to the house of Fëanor.

The King had three sons; Fëanáro was the eldest, and a genius who invented computers and lightleapers and all kinds of other things, and he didn't have much of a personal taste for ruling others but his eldest son, Lord Maedhros, was very gifted with it - generous with his time, thoughtful about what he asked of people. The plan was for the King to hand the crown to Fëanáro and for Fëanáro to hand it on soon enough. 

But once Melkor was released he knew that the Noldor, united, could destroy him, so he sought to sow discord. He planted evidence that Fëanáro was plotting against Nolofinwë for Nolofinwë's loyalists to find, and planted evidence that Nolofinwë was plotting against Fëanáro for us to find. And then they did not trust each other and in truth started planning for a fight, should one be necessary, and then Melkor killed the King.

And there was - considerable confusion, for a long time, over who ruled the Noldor, and Fëanáro was killed during that time, and Lord Maedhros saw that, while the crown was rightly his, his people would suffer should he insist on it, and so he offered it to Nolofinwë and swore him fealty."

She is very sorry about the deaths of their former king and Fëanáro. She is delighted that a group of people who could almost be Liars have a political history this complex that features this many players with this much power, but she doesn't say that because it seems like it might be disrespectful. The delight itself is still coming through, though she occasionally makes an effort to look serious.

"What are lightleapers?"

"Lightleapers travel between the stars. The stars are very far apart and travel between them otherwise takes a long time."

"Oh, yeah, of course. I'm from Yahi. It's ten lightyears away from Earth, so when house Tellari reassigned me, it took us about ten years to get there. It's much faster traveling between stars in the network, but it takes a really long time to build the pathways, so the number of stars that people can easily travel between is limited. How fast do the lightleapers go?"

"It takes a lightleaper five days to reach a destination."

"Any destination? I guess that shouldn't be surprising if the gate can send people places instantaneously, but it's still way more powerful than what the Carthons and the Alteri otherwise have access to."

He nods seriously. "That's very good to know. Yes, any destination."