"I think we should head out when the cart's full and go straight to Lórien," he says at the eighth vendor's.

"But Grandfather will want to see us and he always has the best food and he might have a message for the people Nienna rescued."

"You could do that later."

"Does Karen want to meet your grandfather, Maitimo?"

"No." Sigh. "Okay."

She would protest against, like, excessively weighing what she wants, but actually if she had just been rescued from hell by a terrifying crying woman she would kind of want food and reassurance from someone other than the terrifying crying woman as soon as possible. It honestly seems very likely that the people who were in hell are in much much worse shape than she is.

So their cartful of food sets off for Lórien, with all of them walking alongside it now because it is full.

She feels kind of like she should still be talking to people? But she's not sure what she'd say, so she'll just, like, follow along silently until either somebody says something to her or they make it back to Lorien.

Nah he can't shut up for more than ten seconds when he's not in an unfamiliar place, apparently. "Do you think you will want your house to be in the city?"

"I'm not sure. I'll have to ask Connor and Zana what they want before I decide, I think."

"I bet Zana will want to live in the city because she did not agree with me about farms."

"I think your farms are different than ours. And your cities."

"Do you think the people Nienna rescued will like it?"

"I think the people Nienna rescued are - probably kind of fragile right now? I'm not super sure what they need. The food is probably good."

"I tried to see what Nienna was doing but she wouldn't show me."

"Some chance it's kind of disturbing, honestly."

"I know about lots of bad things now."

"Yeah. It's - still kinda nice to space the bad things out, sometimes."

"Some of those people are my people. That's why Nienna went - wherever she went - for them."

"Yeah."

"Is that the place all the humans go when they die?"

"I dunno. I don't think they all do, but a lot of them might."

"I want the bad things to stop happening."

"Yeah. That's just - often a little easier said than done, I think."