"...Sure...?"

"Oh hell. Is it anybody I know? Where is the scout now?"

"I very much doubt it's anyone you know, and we're holding her in a building on the edge of camp - " he gestures - "under guard. She insists she was scouting and got lost."

"Okay. I didn't know anything about this and would have called whoever suggested it an idiot - possibly in gentler terms - if I had. My interests lie in your hosts not fighting and I think I can best accomplish that by adopting a consistent position of opposing whoever aggresses first but my version of 'opposing' with people I'm hoping to work with in the long run is probably more conciliatory than most people's. She didn't fire any arrows into the camp?"

"She did not. I hadn't left my workshop since shortly after you departed, so if I was the target she wouldn't have had a chance to."

"My instinct here is that you should confiscate her bow and send her home - I'll get there first and will be able to ask, although possibly not be answered, if she was sent or what - and if she wasn't just a lone moron acting unauthorized, then somebody of yours gets to learn to fly and improve your scouting and archer-finding efficacy, the Nolofinwëans get to know that this is something I felt I had to do because they couldn't keep their eight foot tall bows to themselves, and then I trust you not to be irresponsible with your bird-scout. If she was a lone moron acting unauthorized then her own people should be suitably horrified and keep her away from the giant bows in the future."

"I'm absolutely certain they'll declare themselves horrified and promise to keep her away from bows in the future."

"Yes, that is the risk associated with this plan, that I won't be able to tell if they're lying or not. There are also risks with assuming on this basis that she definitely wasn't acting alone."

"What I'd like is to be able to walk around my home without worrying I'm going to die, and for all of my people to have that confidence. I do not think sending her home and asking you to convey our annoyance will achieve that."

"Fine. Keep her, if they can't cough up a satisfactory response you get a bird scout and then send her home?"

"What are you inclined to regard as a satisfactory response? We all know exactly what we're going to hear from them, and it's exactly the same regardless of what's really going on."

"Predict me a prediction, then, and I won't regard that as a satisfactory response, but they might surprise us."

"They kidnapped one of our scouts? She was certainly just scouting, why would I provoke my unstable lunatic brother? She was using that bow for - I don't know the reason but I am sure they'll have one - and doesn't deserve this harassment, let's figure out how to convince my unstable lunatic brother to send her home unharmed."

"As a gesture of goodwill I will not require the exact phrase 'my unstable lunatic brother' to appear in the reply before I disqualify it. May I speak to her?"

"Yes, certainly. Go invisibly, it's nearly impossible to check all of the spots on all of the mountains that are within a capable archer's range."

Loki nods, and goes, invisibly, to ask where the prisoner is.

They point her to the appropriate building. It's furnished as a typical bedroom. There are three guards, not armed.

When she's indoors she's visible again. "Hello. May I talk to her?" Loki says to the guards.

"Alone?"

"Not necessarily, but it seems like it might help depending on what's going on and I don't think she's going to get very far if she tries to hurt me."

"Fair enough." She nods to the others and they head out.

In Loki goes.

The woman is sitting on the bed, and starts anxiously when Loki enters.

"Hi. I'm Loki. What's your name?"