"Lots of people are."

"Not Quendi."

"That sounds odd."

"It makes sense to me. If you don't have the enemy, why would anyone be evil?"

"...Admittedly I'm not certain how much of our fightiness is social engineering, witches, or us just being like that. Witches make people feel - angry, despairing, like nothing will ever be right again, and usually people then lash out. If someone feels like that because they're hungry and there's only enough food for half the people anywhere... They might act like a witch has them."

Her plan right now is to negotiate a place to just. Not be around people. Luthien isn't bad, a bit naive - reminds Sue of Nausicaa almost - but this is. Unpleasant. Moreso than talking usually is.

"That's just awful!"

She seems genuinely upset, although it's not entirely obvious which part brought that on.

"There's a lot to fix in my world."

"It sounds like it."

The song becomes a lot more sad, at that, but it doesn't carry the same distance and encompassing power; the magic, if that's what the feeling is, is lesser or non-existent.

She'll go quiet, start conserving her energy - and organizing her thoughts - for what's ahead.

Luthien doesn't seem to be in a particular hurry, but even so, it quickly becomes clear that she is really fast. It's not just because she never misses a step or has unsure footing even when she dances along, either, its definitely at least borderline superhuman, and casually so. It's still technically within the range of human capabilities, and certainly not beyond those of Puella Magi even if Sue doesn't want to show off, but she doesn't seem to tire either. She never needs to stop to catch her breath despite the singing, and if at first it might simply be explainable by skill that quickly stops serving as an adequate explanation.

Not unusual for a magical girl, or at least one who knows what she's doing. Still, if this Luthien represents an entire species, and isn't some modified particularly pretty lich like Sue... (Her soul lives in a gem. It's a phylactery. Anyone who argues with her or calls her a nerd is clearly not particularly self aware.)

But, yeah, definitely far from home.

After a few hours, the forest starts to brighten. The sun starts to peak through the trees, and the forest turns a bright reddish orange as the wildlife starts to wake up.

Sue considers asking when they'll get there a few times, but she's not getting tired and testing assorted senses - she's been trying to recreate Carrie's sensory abilities - is occupying enough. It's nice that Luthien's willing to let them be quiet so long, too, even quiet people usually try starting a conversation over that scale.

This forest also doesn't seem particularly flight friendly. 

Still, once it's dawn and she's less likely to hit a tree if she takes off at speed - "We getting close?" she asks.

"Yeah. We're over halfway to the entrance to Menegroth."

They're running nearby a river, now, and the song Luthien is currently singing has also changed. She sings of slow but steady currents, the dappled sunlight through the trees onto the shaded water, and... something Sue doesn't really have the context to place due to her lack of Sindarin; it's something about the ocean, but not the water itself, not really.

"I'm fine, but if you want I can fly us." It uses up magic which she might want to ration more than usual, but she doesn't use grief seeds from witches she doesn't know she can beat, so, as long as she finds somewhere deserted to hatch one or a few...

Luthien isn't privy to any of this, and even if she had that word for word she wouldn't really have the context to make an informed decision; magic taking nonrenewable resources is very much not her expectation. This lack of knowledge, however, does nothing to change the fact that this is super exciting.

"I'd love that!"

"Alright. I'll want to carry you, then." She's not sure the phrase 'bridal style' will translate at all.

The implications here would be very different, so it's just as well that she doesn't use that. With the phrasing as is, Luthien has absolutely no objections.

She'll scoop Luthien up, then, and take off, rising as high in the canopy as seems safe.

Speed scales nicely with cost, but long jumps are a cheaper way of steering than course correcting with flight, so she'll (gently) bounce off trees whenever she needs to turn to navigate.

She has a good capacity, so won't need to clear her soul gem mid-flight even being incredibly paranoid about usage.

"Eeeeeeeh!"

Words, it seems, can not express how delighted Luthien is.  Songs might also have difficulty, but Luthien decides to give that one a valiant effort. If the previous songs were supernaturally beautiful, then this one is almost overwhelmingly so. Luthien is really, really delighted, and if she has any objections to the method of carrying she certainly has yet to express them.

Flight is one of the skills she'd insisted on training until it wasn't prohibitively expensive.

It's fun in a way few things are.

Luthien very enthusiastically agrees. The river starts to get further below the ground, and the riverbed lies at the bottom of a steadily deepening valley. After about 12 minutes, they start to approach what elves would consider near to the entrance; it's quite a ways out of vision range for humans, and the bridge blends in well with the stone of the cliffs, but Luthien's familiar with the area and her eyesight is more than good enough to pick it out even from this unfamiliar vantage point. 

"That's the entrance to Menegroth."

She'll drop them down to the ground, then, so they can walk or run the rest of the way. No sense in alarming any sentries. She enhances her vision a bit so it's more visible and then nods.

"Any approach protocols?"

Luthien tries not to seem too disappointed about no longer flying, and she achieves this admirably! It’s still incredibly obvious if you can hear the music, though; she seamlessly moves from one subject to another, but the change from sheer delight is it’s own message.

”They can hear me coming. Menegroth doesn’t have some kind of secret code you need to knock out on the wall to get in, or anything like that.”

"Alright. Lead the way?"