"Sarpalarë. I saw you and heard you, and heard more of you. You're working with them?"

"I'm working with everybody. It seems like the smart thing to do. What about you?"

"I work for my King."

"I was afraid of that. Does your King know how you go about this noble pastime?"

"I'm no Kinslayer, unlike them. We carry weapons because the land is dangerous, and so we can hunt for food, and they were looking for an excuse for a fight and seized on that."

"That would be a great reason to have a crossbow and a hunting knife. Or even a longbow and a sword."

"We don't have our choice of weapons because they stole them."

"And they didn't steal your giant bows that are taller than you are? Or those were your first priority to make new instances of?"

"You can't use the same wood for every make of bow."

"So you stopped when you found a high-quality eight-foot-long chunk of flexible high-draw-weight wood, because that would have been trivial compared to finding a different kind of tree. You realize this sounds bad."

"We found every kind of wood we could, and made the highest quality bow possible given that material, and didn't have enough to go around for everyone because we'd only had a week to work."

"And nobody thought, 'hey, let's send the people with the really threatening-looking bows not in the direction of our cousins' camp, somebody could take that the wrong way'. Nobody thought, 'hey, we need scouts, I wonder if we can get in on that "turning into a bird" deal if we ask nicely'. Nobody thought, 'hey, Loki said the stolen things were going to be coming back, since we're so strapped for ranged weapons maybe we can get some of those sooner rather than later'. Nobody, in a word, thought?"

"We weren't sending scouts in their direction, so it didn't seem likely to be relevant. It's not a threatening-looking weapon and I couldn't have made a shot at that range. They're stretching."

"It's an eight-foot-tall bow. I might find an eight-foot-tall bow threatening and yesterday just for fun and educational purposes I killed a hundred something giant spiders. But if it makes you feel better, osanwë me where you were and I'll ask someone to demonstrate that they can hit it or get close from here."

She shows the location.

"Anything else you want to add?"

"Why would I make myself into a kinslayer just to provoke a war - because if I'd killed one of them, it would be a war - that doesn't help anyone I care about?"

"I don't know, it seems like a really stupid thing to do, but so does your faction proceeding in the way you claim. I'm pretty much not coming out of this not thinking you did something stupid."

"And what are you going to do? Once you make up your mind?"

"Depends on how I wind up making up my mind. I'll ask to see the spot, I'll ask to see a shot made from or to there with an eight-fucking-foot-tall bow, I'll go talk to your people, and if they don't have anything revelatory to say I'll ask the Fëanorians to send you home in exchange for me teaching one of their scouts to fly."

She relaxes. "All right."

"What did you think I was going to do?"

"They're Kinslayers. I'm very sure they'd soonest settle this that way, it's how they settle everything else."

"Do you have any complaints about your actual treatment, as long as we're having this conversation? Apart from the fact that they took you at all, I mean."

"It's odd that I'm the only one of my host who they're not trying to starve to death, but they aren't."