“What do you mean?”

"If I - wanted an item. Like - a dress. How would I get it?"

“It depends on how soon you needed it, and for how long, I guess, but usually you would find a dressmaker you like, and ask them to make one for you? If you need it on a time constraint and they’re busy you might borrow a dress from a friend, or help them out so they had more free time? You could also try and find someone who wasn’t as busy? I know I usually to get stuff faster because I’m the princess, but it’s the same process...”

"So by default there's no - exchange? People just do things for each other?"

“Usually, yeah. Sometimes people want more of something than we have people who make it? Most of the time when that happens it’s because we don’t really have those skills and we go to the Naugrim, like when we needed weapons to fight The Enemy or when Menegroth was built, and we pay them in gold. Otherwise, though, they can always go find someone who likes doing it, pick up the skill themselves.”

"Probably works better with less people and more time, I guess."

“I’m not sure more people would become an issue, at least not until you started to get so many that mom couldn’t support them all. More time, though... If you died so soon, then waiting a few months for someone to get around to compose your song might be too long, and you can’t just spend most of a decade of your life getting as good as everyone else is in your field.”

"Yeah. Plus. Lots of people. And no one - making new natural stuff? So there's resource shortages. And - "

She's not sure how to word 'there's people no one likes who should still probably have stuff,' especially in a way that'll make sense to someone from an apparently intensely pro-social species.

Even with telepathy, stuff that Sue isn’t sending isn’t going to be heard. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, what sue did send is sad enough to visibly effect Luthien.

“Everything about that sounds really hard. It was really awful in the early days of the war, when people couldn’t safely hunt or gather food, and how hungry the people coming to Doriath were. And your world... it sounds like you don’t have The Enemy, but there are so many of you, and I can’t even really help people here either.”

This may have gotten abruptly somewhat more personal.

"Why not?"

“I’m not allowed to leave Doriath. I’m half Maia, so I’m a lot stronger than most Quendi, but dad... if I got captured, he couldn’t stay objective, so the Enemy would never stop trying. I design Songs, and try to help keep up morale, but it’s not the same and I hate not being able to help.”

"There's - support stuff. That's important. But... People should - be able to go where they want?" She shrugs. "I'm not - used to the idea of one person being essential, though."

“I used to be able to leave before the war, but I didn’t really do it then; there wasn’t  any need. But Angband... only one person has ever gotten free once they got captured, and the Valar were helping.”

"...I might be able to break people out if that's - important? Depends on what's keeping them there. And how vulnerable I am to local magic."

“Melkor is the one keeping them there. He’s the strongest person in Ea; in the years of the lamps, he used to fight the Valar constantly, 13 on one, and they almost lost before Tulkas arrived. He’s not impossible to fight - the Noldor do it occasionally - but it never ends well. He also controls Angband and the territory around it even more than mom does Doriath, and he has all his Balrogs and Glamhoth.”

"I might want to know more about local magic, if I can't get out quickly, which looks like the case. I won't want to stay in this same forest long. But I don't know what here can threaten me."

“You’d probably want someone more familiar with the war, like Mablung or Beleg. I know what I’m supposed to do if I ever end up outside of Doriath and can’t get back, but that doesn’t translate to knowing what’s most dangerous to you.”

"Direct magic attacks and mind control would be most dangerous to me? Maybe? I have a wish protecting me, and it - covers most've what I've met?"

“I don’t think anyone in The Enemy’s forces except the Ainur and Glaurung are likely to have those. If it just stops you from being hurt, though, his other forces could still capture you, or slow you down enough that you couldn’t just escape. If you can keep up the flying you showed me and use it to avoid fights, you should be mostly fine, because I’m not sure anything short of an Ainur could chase you down since their archery isn’t as good as ours is and nothing else flying can challenge the eagles.”

"I'm immune to all physical damage. I'm immune to magical damage native to my world. I've met mind control that could get through my shields once - a girl whose wish made everyone she talked to like her. It wasn't malicious and was a wish-power, which might've been why it got through. I'm probably vulnerable to emotional control. I can't be knocked out, and I don't need to move to do magic, so I'm hard to capture without strong magical bindings. If I was being careful about clearing my magic as I went, I can fly for a very long time, a bit faster than what I showed, or probably for an hour at around five hundred times that if I was being stupidly reckless."

“Wow. I don’t know if mom could do all of that, even in Doriath, and she’s one of the strongest and most versatile Maia around. Affecting emotions can be done with just the Song, though; minds are harder to do much with, but if anyone on the continent could do it it would be The Enemy. Maybe an Utumno survivor would know more, but it seems cruel to ask them.”

"Yeah. So I'd want to avoid people with the Song, I guess, maybe unless I could find an ally to push the other way, if - countering? Exists?"

”Everyone can use the song, if they can sing it. Mostly the Enemy doesn’t teach the Glamhoth how, though, and Men don’t tend to be as good as Quendi are. 

“Countering songs is possible, but it’s really hard to do unless you’re one of the Ainur. There are only a dozen people or so in Doriath who can pull it off reliably, and there’s a skill gradient.”

"I'd want to know - how strongly it affects me. And if it still works if I destroy my ear drums."

”if you want, I could try to put you to sleep, or calm you down, or make you happy? If you want something specific then asking Daeron would be the way to go. Bursting your eardrums doesn’t help, it works just fine on deaf people.”