"Alright!"

The river widens more, but Sue could probably still jump across it with enhanced strength even if she didn't use her flight trick. The pass some more Quendi, but there aren't a ton of them; even if Sue is averting her eyes, she won't miss much. It comes to a stop at a lake. The lake is less than a kilometer across, but it's still quite sizable; there are a few more Quendi swimming in it, and what looks like a pair of them having a race. There's a river flowing out of it as well, which curves a bit and then dissapears among the trees.

"This is almost the edge of Menegroth. The water flows back into the Esgalduin, and there's a wall of rock just a ways beyond those trees. It's made to look pretty natural, but lots of Quendi don't like to see it and be reminded that there's an outside where things aren't always safe."

Nod.

Things don't go away if you don't think about them.

This place is... Almost too quiet and peaceful.

"What's the outside like?"

"The forest is pretty safe. I've never heard of someone getting through without mom letting them before you did, but she says that The Enemy might be able to force his way in after enough time, and not everyone can be safely let in. The rest of Beleriand is pretty bad, though; after the battle of sudden flame, the enemy swept most of the kingdoms off the map and broke the siege of Angband. Aside from Himring and the Falas Havens, the only ones that aren't dead or enslaved are the ones he can't find. Gondolin is almost as safe as here is; Ulmo made it impossible to locate unless someone who already knows where it is tells you. Nargathrond should still be hidden, and might last a while if he found it because there are lots of Noldor there, but it's hard to be sure. I haven't heard of any of the Naugrim cities falling, but they wouldn't be able to stop any serious assault and mostly stay out of the war aside from supplying us with arms. The north is all controlled by The Enemy's Glamhoth, but further south there are fewer of them?"

"I'm sorry I can't be more helpful. I've never actually left Doriath before."

"It's okay. It sounds bad out there."

”It’s pretty awful. Things were safer a decade ago, but still not safe; nowhere outside of Valinor has been really safe in almost 500 years, not even Menegroth or Gondolin.”

"I don't know much about here. What's - the threats?"

“Most of The Enemy’s forces are Glamhoth, which aren’t that dangerous unless they outnumber you or ambush you or you get tired, but he has lots of them and they often have dogs to hunt you down. He has some Men that serve him, too, but I don’t know as much about what they’re capable of; Gorthaur turned some of them into Werewolves, but those mostly stay near his fortress on Tol-in-Gaurhoth. The Valley of Dreadful Death has giant spiders, but I think those are just dangerous, not servants of The Enemy.

”If The Enemy wants to destroy someone personally, then he might send an army, or he might send some of his Maiar. Most of them are incarnated as deadly monsters of flame - we call them Balrogs - but Gorthaur isn’t. He’s nearly as strong as a Power himself, and is The Enemy’s chief lieutenant so he never lacks forces. The Enemy doesn’t leave Angband much himself, he hasn’t done much himself since he killed Fingolfin eight years ago.There’s also Glaurung. No one knows what it is, besides one of The Enemy’s creations - it’s hard to say how big it is, but at least 6 horselengths, not counting the tail. It’s got four legs, each with enormous claws, its scales are as hard as iron, and it can breath fire. 

“The Noldor can be really bad, but if the alternative is the Enemy everyone says they’re the much better option.”

Dragons. Great. Fantastic. This day keeps getting better.

"Bad how?"

“They’re Kinslayers. Back before they got kicked out of Valinor, they killed thousands of the Falmari because the Falmari wouldn’t let them steal their ships, and then burned the ships when they were done with them. If the people who live in a place aren’t strong enough to stop them, they don’t care about them at all; almost their land is stolen from native Sindar that were hit hard early on in the war, and they drove out or killed all the Noegyth Nibin living there so they could make a kingdom in their caves in Nargothrond; they also don’t treat the human kingdoms very well but I don’t know the details there. Apparently, their king is a sexual deviant, but I guess that aside from letting him be king that’s not most of the Noldor’s fault. 

“The only reason they’re even at war with The Enemy is that he stole some of their treasure.”

"Sound bad. Treasure like what?"

“A bunch of them, but the ones that sparked the war are called the Silmarils. There are three of them, gemstones. They’re supposed to be really pretty and glow with the light of the Trees, and Varda blesses them to burn anything evil that touched them. They were made by Fëanor, the high king of the Noldor, and he was really possessive of them so when The Enemy stole them he brought the Noldor to war.”

"...That's making me think 'evil-burning lasers.' I'm probably very wrong about the possibility of spreading the effect, though."

“I’m not sure what a laser is, but I don’t think so? The Enemy can’t touch them, but he still put them in his iron crown.”

"A way of projecting light in a small beam. Usually harmless, but big ones can set stuff on fire."

“How would that work? The Silmaril’s burnt The Enemy’s hands, but they weren’t hot or anything.”

Luthien pauses for a moment, as hearing something.

”Oh, like how the Sun heats things up, but concentrated onto one spot. That sounds incredible!”

"Don't know if it'd actually work. Just what I thought when I heard 'burns on contact' and 'emits light' together."

“I don’t think that’s it. The Silmarils don’t burn you unless you touch them, because Varda blessed the gemstones and not the light. Light is always moving, I think if you tried to bless the light like that it wouldn't work well because the blessed light wouldn’t stick around any more than normal light does.”

"Huh. That's not intuitive to me. Magic items in my system aren't - inherently limited in being able to produce or project things?"

"The Silmarils aren't a Power, I don't see how they could be constantly blessing the light they make, even if Feanor wanted them to? I don't really know how they were made, though, I'm not a Noldo."

"It's - in my magic, conjured things are inherently magical. Only people with magic, or wishes, or maybe things made by wishes, can conjure anything. If something is conjured at all, it wouldn't be hard to make that conjured thing have active effects."

Luthien blinks, and looks down at the ground by her feet.

"The flowers I make aren't magical like that, I don't think."

"I think it's a difference in magic systems. Ours are - very, very different."

”It sure seems like it.”

It’s a bit of a trek from the lake to the gardens, but probably not enough so that Sue gets bored. Luthien spends the trip singing, as seems to be her habit, and several of the Quendi she and Sue pass join in for a time. 

“Here it is!”

The trees give way to open fields, and they are covered in flowers of all different types. Reds and orange and yellow and blue and green, all the colors of the rainbow but with  black and white and pink, in vibrant colors that grab the eye and muted pastel to not overwhelm. It seems like it should clash horribly, but there appears  to have been an enormous effort made to make everything work together. It’s not the same style as the carved dragons, or even the trees and sky above, but they also have prodigious attention to detail and a strong sense of aesthetics. If Sue knows her flowers, she’ll notice that this garden seems to have many of the same as the ones she knows, but also unheard of varieties that share only artistic inspiration with those from her home world. The field is enormous, but the effect isn’t ruined no matter how much one gazes at at a time. The air smells faintly sweet, but not overpoweringly so, and tinged with dozens of mixing scents; each one still separable from the mass, but blended together to something far better than the some of its parts. In the center lies a copse of flowering trees, in which songbirds sit and spring, and the air has a smattering if gorgeous butterflies in their own riotous color.

There are paths among the flowers, almost completely hidden and placed so as not to ruin the veiw, for travel. There are quite a few Quendi here, although not really a crowd.

“This isn’t the biggest of the gardens, but it’s my favorite one.” 

"It's nice." She has questions, vaguely, but putting them into order sounds exhausting.

Luthien is, in fact, a mind reader, but she’s not doing that right now, and thus isn’t picking up what Sue isn’t sending. She can, however, notice a lack of enthusiasm.

”Should we go on to a different garden, or to our next destination?”