Dwarves! Oh, she can tell the story of how Rirosseth became best friends with the Queen of the Dwarves and got a magic helmet that made the bearer nigh-indestructible and sent it to aforementioned cousin as a present - "they were lovers but it's kind of a secret and I don't know how the artifact feels about -"

"...the artifact is pro-monogamy but it's not going to make a fuss if I don't run into the cousin and worst case scenario Rirosseth would have to issue clear preferences about me getting along with the cousin?"

"And also she's been dead for a century so it's not going to come up except in 'degree I have to talk around it'."

Nod. "You don't have to talk around it."

That's about all the happy anecdotes she can manufacture out of the Beleriand years - she can do heroic ones, there was that time this other idiot of a cousin seduced some mortal vassals and then stationed them on the front lines of the war and the Bragollach happened and they got trapped and Rirosseth who'd been indignant about the whole thing to start with singlehandedly rode out and rescued ten thousand people and fed and sheltered them in besieged Himring for a year -

It was an eventful year, they fought a lot of Balrogs, here's what a Balrog is like, and some dragons - those looked like this - Rirosseth had gotten scary good with her left arm, by then, and orcs would run when they heard she was coming, and it'd been a year of constant living nightmare but they'd come out of it alive - okay, that's all the even vaguely positive Beleriand stuff, it was all downhill from there.

Her sister's given name is Nelyafinwë Maitimë, and she hates it, becuase Maitimë means 'beautiful' and Thauron loved calling her that. And the Nelyafinwë - well, here's the story behind that, and here's a tiny Rirosseth explaining to her sister - "it makes people sad, my name, and I'm kind of mad at mom because she could have not given me a name that makes people sad, but I don't think she understands things like that, and it's too late to explain, she can't change my name, so I'd just make her feel guilty by telling her - you don't have to be this careful with most people but you kind of do with mom - anyway, so I just invented all these ways to make sure it almost never comes up, and now you're old enough to understand and you can help me get away with it -"

...tiny Rirosseth. Tiny socially nimble Rirosseth.

Rirosseth decided Tirion needed indoor plumbing, and here is how that went! Rirosseth decided the procedures for road maintenance were utter lunacy, and here is how that went! Rirosseth was bored in paradise, though it didn't manifest until she became aware there was anywhere where she was actually needed - Rirosseth decided to try to help the Valar be less incompetent, Rirosseth wanted to leave Valinor as soon as she heard that humans were going to start existing and were going to have a rocky time of it, Rirosseth was so obviously qualified to be Queen but her old-fashioned grandmother wanted her to marry and raise children before taking on such an all-consuming job, because she couldn't do it during and it hadn't occurred to the Queen that she might not be planning to do it at all...

Annie is probably going to cry about this at some point but at the moment it's just nice -

She's kind of crying. Also the kids have been out in the courtyard a while, she should probably get them dinner - thank you for listening - 

Thank you for telling me.

Children are retrieved and fed and reassured - not that they ask, but they look anxious - that the grownups in their life are all stable and competent and loving. Luckily they can't see through lies as easily as her sister.

Annie stays put in her room and processes and she does cry some and then she writes some more and then she needs dinner too.

Dinner is still available!

It's convenient that way.

And then Annie goes to bed because wow what a day.

Yeah.

She has awful nightmares, wakes up sobbing and screaming and clawing at her mattress - she can't sleep with blankets, too constraining -

Which Annie can't notice from being holed up underground well out of range, dozing.

In the morning the calm has worn off entirely and she curls up in a corner and cries until her sister brings her breakfast and then cries again once her sister leaves.

When Annie ventures out for breakfast she asks Lírnith how Rirosseth is.

"...I think she wants some space."

"Okay." Annie can do that. She eats and goes back to her room where she will be out of the way.

Sorry.

It's okay, whatever she needs is okay. Thank you.