"Why would they ask you. Who are you. - I don't think I've introduced myself, my name is May."

"It's really lovely meeting you! My name is Celebrimbor. People'd ask me because it's useful for coordination, see, for there to be a known person who you'd ask about that sort of thing. So people don't book the houses for different people at the same time."

"You're telling me your job is booking house borrowings?"

"- among other things? Do you want some kind of different housing arrangement, we could just give you some money and you can go buy it from the Dwarves."

"Who're the Dwarves? Were they here learning English?"

"No, they're the other major race of people in this city, the ones who found you and brought you here. They have hair on their faces and they're all very short."

"Then I don't see how I'd buy anything from them. A diplomat house sounds fine, I just want to know if I'm going to be in trouble for being in it if you aren't authorized to give it out."

"You will not be in trouble for being in it."

"If you say so."

He relaxes considerably. 

The diplomat guest houses are very spacious and extraordinarily pretty and have lights that are always on (but can have shades closed over them) and running hot water. On the whole it's very nice for a place for people who haven't invented industry yet. There's a large spread of foods on the table. "We thought probably some would be suitable. None of them are ones we know humans to be allergic to."

May looks them over for anything recognizable. They have humans, not in this city but somewhere, maybe they also have wheat and cows.

Yep! And fish and potatoes and carrots and rice and honey and lentils and clams and a pineapple. Also many non-recognizable things.

"I recognize a lot of this." She helpfully names things. She serves herself some of everything she's pretty sure she can identify.

"Oh good!! Is there anything else I can do for you right now?"

"What should I expect tomorrow?"

"Entirely up to you! I know that the linguistics guild would like to have you back for more lessons, if you'd like that, or there are three other formally recognized ones and probably a few eschewing official recognition if you'd like to go there instead. Or you could have a tour of the city. If you'd like to live among humans I can write to arrange you transit to human lands, though it's a long journey and I don't think the winds are favorable for it this time of year. Or you could just stay and rest a day and consider all of that later, if you wanted."

"Like, will more food be delivered or is there a way to keep all this good overnight, is there a way for me to get a change of clothes..."

"Clothes! I'll have someone send clothes. Some of the food would keep, some won't, but unless you're particularly attached to it I'll have someone pick that up too and deliver more in the morning."

"Cool. Delivery. Okay, how do I find you or anybody else who knows a weird amount of English now if I need anything else, since I... haven't learned to do telepathy yet?"

"My house is right across the street from here, and hard to miss -" he points at what is, sure enough, the most distinctive and largest house on the street, with stone walls of rather spectacular craftsmanship and a roof lined with telescopes.

"It's pretty. Well, everything here is pretty."

"Thank you!"

"What can you tell me about the telepathy so I can see if I can learn how?"

"I would be fairly surprised if you could learn how to do it. Elves can do it from birth, though in early childhood we have a hard time partitioning the thoughts we mean to send and the ones we want to keep private. Dwarves can never do it at all. Humans can't do it themselves at all, but they can learn how to partition their thoughts so only the ones they mean for us to interact with are there for us to interact with."

"I mean learn to do what the humans here do. What happens if they don't learn to partition their thoughts?"