"Are you - scared we won't make it to the city? Because we will. I'm tired but that just means slower, doesn't mean I won't get there. And those things seem more scared of us than we are of them."

"Scared is -?"

"A monster tries to eat you, scared. There is no food anywhere, scared. You're badly hurt and might die, scared."

"I am scared. If you die you die. If I die -" She taps the back of her neck. "But not you."

"Hmm, okay. I think - 

- I fucking hate languages, what a stupid idea, we should all just settle on one - 

- it seems like we are not actually running a big risk here. If I injure myself bad enough I can't get up, you carry me. If you injure yourself, I float you along. If we wake up surrounded by a bunch of those things, more than I can stun, I have to light a fire and then we have to run. But - none of those we die? I can't really think how we die except by something way bigger and scarier coming along, and I've wrangled dragons, right? How are you expecting that taking longer to get to the city means we die, and did you catch anything I said because I haven't taught most of these words."

"I catch some." Sigh. "Not a big risk. But a risk."

"I mean, everyone's gotta die of something."

"...no."

- shrug. "Cats eat mice and lions eat gazelles and the world eats people? I'm not saying I like it."

"Quendi don't die, orcs don't die, Dwarves don't -" neck tap, "but nothing eats them, they don't die. Humans... die? Everyone?"

"Yeah. Not just humans, all the things I know of, they all die of being - of having been for a while, if they haven't died of anything already."

Shrug. "You can carry me if you care that much."

"Less weird if you sleeping?" she asks.

"I guess, yeah."

"When you sleeping, then." Sigh.

They keep walking.

The monsters don't come out in the daytime. Once he's firmly asleep she scoops him up and trots the rest of the way to town by starlight.

When he wakes up he is tucked into a bed in a very elaborately pretty hotel room and can just hear Mirelótë talking in enthusiastic might-be-Greek with someone next door.

Greek? Really? And here he was thinking she was from some other planet or something. He must've translated a word wrong. 

He gets himself some water and gets up and goes to the door to sort of attempt to listen.

It's a weird dialect of Greek, but concerted effort can make out some words. Mirelótë is speaking in fragmentary sentences; she might still be learning it.

Maybe this is Greece but she's from elsewhere? This place is definitely too fancy to be Muggle. 

He examines it for food.

There is a covered dish (the dish and its cover are both gorgeous) on the (exquisitely carved) nightstand. It's a bowl of rice with very prettily colored vegetables and raisins and spices in it.

Weird but he's so so hungry. He eats it.

It tastes okay, not really quality in keeping with the presentation but still pretty good.

Yeah these people or their servants seem kind of obsessed with presentation. Whatever.