"I can't help but think it may not have helped that this was previously a society of pacifists, however admirable a state that may otherwise be. Skilled combatants can more neatly handle a fight nonlethally than unskilled ones determined to continue until they cannot."

"That makes sense, actually. If we do end up fighting with my uncle, when we arrive, it's going to be very ugly."

"However, I am reluctant to attempt to train any of you in combat to address this problem."

"We're also going to need to learn in order to fight the Enemy. You have to agree that's worthwhile."

"It does sound like a pressing problem, but in that case I would equally offer training to other groups besides your own in some relatively balanced fashion. Beyond a general willingness to commit murder what skills does he wield?"

"I will take that under advisement. There must be some limit to his will-commanding or there would be no war to fight; what is known about where this power ends?"

"Yes, he's only done that with people he'd enslaved for years. And even then - some people, released from his fortress, go back to their lives, as much as that's possible. Some of them seem to, and then murder everyone in the town that night. And many people are of course never released at all. So it seems likely that he has very low reliability. It's mostly a source of concern because it means we can't trust our own most vulnerable people, and because it's the process by which he created the orcs."

"What is an orc?"

"If he's trying and hasn't just decided to enforce a curse on one of their common ancestors. Where do thinking experiencing beings come from, around here, then?"

"Eru Ilúvatar."

"Who is...?"

"The one who created thinking experiencing beings. He created the Valar, too, and set them the task of Creation. It's said that everything that happens is according to his plan, but I'm not sure what that means. He speaks only to the Valar, and infrequently."

"...I see."

"We should head back, it'll get dark. Where do thinking experiencing beings come from in your world?"

"I can light the way if that's the issue. The usual manner involves less intelligent creatures finding themselves in a position where only their cleverest children survive, for many, many generations; although any given race's particular origins may be too long lost to discern in detail."

"That sounds monstrous."

"...On whose part?"

"Having children in an environment where only the cleverest will survive."

"Do most animals live and have as many children as they might like, here?"

"Yes, of course. It wouldn't be a very good paradise otherwise, would it? There's hunting, of course, but you wouldn't hunt children."

"Have you no predatory animals? Those often go for the vulnerable, including the juveniles. Diseases? There are no animals here, so they cannot be invulnerable to the weather in general, but perhaps in other places yours is mild and harmless? If they breed as they like how do they not run out of food, whatever it is the animals here eat? In most cases animals do well by being quick or good at collecting food or good at shrugging off illness - in some what they need is to be smart. If they need it badly enough, long enough, well, perhaps you have observed that people tend to take after their parents in some respects. Perhaps you breed horses, or something, picking the favorites to have more foals than the others, and have noticed this in them too."

"Smart animals won't have children if there are going to be too many for the land to support, just as you or I would. Less smart animals -" he laughs - "there's someone I'd ask, but I can't anymore. We do breed horses. You could make them more smart by breeding, but I don't think you could give them a soul that way."

"Well, it may be different here. There are no insects bright enough to restrain themselves that I know of. Other, more complicated animals might not breed - or, more likely, their attempts might fail for simple biological reasons - if they themselves are starving, to hope to live to a more abundant year without spending themselves on a litter of offspring. But if they're doing well and it's their neighbors who are hungry they will reproduce regardless. People will do this too, people of several kinds."