The gardens are very large, very well-lit, and full of people, a few of whom stare at her. One kid recognizes her from their tour and asks if she can do the deer again.

She can do the deer again! Here is a deer traipsing through the gardens, sniffing at the plants as though considering eating them up.

Everyone looks delighted. The kid squeals joyously and goes over to try to pet it.

The deer stays out of reach. "It's not soft; I can't do tangible things like this, sorry."

His mother scoops him up. "Please don't worry about it."

The deer continues to caper around without coming into contact with anything other than the ground, which is illusioned to accommodate its hooves whenever it steps on something that would give. Loki munches on various plants.

There are vines, trees, bushes, occasional rows of flowers. There's an elaborate system by which the river is diverted to water them.

No one interrupts her.

And eventually she goes to sleep.

Lúthien drops by in the morning with notes from the meeting. "I can't even read them myself but Daeron said you'd be able to."

"Sure, if the brief test of the alphabet installation wasn't misleading. Do you want me to read them to you or are they just for me to look over?"

"I was there, I remember it! Though I suppose if you read a few lines it might help me get the hang of it."

So Loki reads the first few lines aloud.

She furrows her brow. "Ah well. Maybe with practice."

"It's not typical to begin learning to read with whole sentences like that, but there isn't a lot of simpler text in this alphabet on hand."

"Oh, I could tell Daeron to come up with a tutorial and he would, he just spends too much time on things specifically for my attention as is, and I don't have enough of it to feel like I'm doing him justice."

"Well, if he ever writes down lyrics to a song you know that would be a reasonable way to start."

She nods. "Shall I let you spell-create? I wanted to go visit the riverside today."

"I really should be allocating more time to spellcraft than I have been," Loki says, "and I have a day before I need to be back northwest and nothing scheduled until then. But do feel free to come back here if you like when you've been to the riverside."

She smiles broadly. "All right."

Lúthien pops back in that evening, looking radiant. "There's a dance, want to come?"

"Is it hard to pick up the dances here? I won't know any of them."

"Oh, don't worry, I'll teach you."