Hugs! There should be hugs!!

"We had to stay with my grandparents for a week and a half and it was TERRIBLE but then Auntie Karen and Aulë came and got us and we came out in these biiig caverns with these glowing rocks and now we're here!"

"And now you can live here where no one has poisoned the water."

"Yeah!!"

"What even is this stuff about the water being poisoned that you guys keep talking about?"

"Zana said I couldn't run off and live in the woods because the water would make me sick. But the water here does not make me sick and I think the water in your world making people sick is very suspicious because it helps make everyone feel trapped."

"That's because water has germs in it. The things that make the food rot. Nobody poisoned it, it's just that germs are everywhere and you have to specifically kill them before you eat or drink anything if you don't want them to get inside you and start eating you."

"Well here you can just eat things."

"Yeah. Apparently so." She's honestly kind of unclear on how true this for humans is but hopefully it will keep being true.

"And it sounds like people don't want to live in the city, kind of like how your cities aren't good places for us, so it's good you can set up your own thing."

"I'm not sure we don't want to live in the city. I think everyone's... very tired. And doesn't want to bother anyone else too much. We'll have to see where we're at once we can get some more of these people responding to anything besides food."

"There's other cities too if they don't like Tirion. They just have different kings."

"Not super big on kings, I suspect. But it's not a problem with Tirion specifically, we're just - I'm not really sure what we need right now."

Hug?

She doesn't really feel like that calls for hugs, actually, but sure, why not.

"M'sure we'll figure stuff out a little more with a little more time."

"Course you will. You figured out the ritual and that was way harder."

" - I'm not actually sure that that's harder than figuring out the needs of a bunch of traumatized people and possibly founding an entirely new society with them? But - thanks."

Eventually Maitimo's parents suggest to him that if he wants to sleep at home today they should head out. He declares that he wants to sleep here. They shrug and leave. He settles down in a bed of brightly colored flowers.

Well, if they're sure it's safe. She watches her kids go to sleep nearby and thinks about how this has been a really, really insane week, but she seems to have gotten through it in one piece, and so has Maitimo and so have Zana and Connor, so how terrible can any of this have been, really.

She looks over maps and talks to people and double-checks that all of the unresponsives have enough food, and eventually she sleeps.

When she wakes up, people are in the final stages of preparing a slightly larger group to go and explore Tirion. They point out that she's one of only three humans who has ever actually been there, and she is sort-of-voluntold to add herself to the group. This beats sitting around in the forest with nothing in particular to do, so she doesn't protest it.

Zana thinks that going into the city is an excellent way to spend today. Also that Maitimo should come, Maitimo can show her whatever all the good things about the city are.

"I can!!! I know all of the good things in the city and you can meet my grandpa who is the king."

Zana kind of thinks that kings are extremely suspicious and probably evil, BUT they are maybe in a fairy tale world now and the rules are a little different in fairy tales. She decides to wait and see.

"That sounds OK."

Bounce bounce. Who all is coming into the city? Have any of them remembered their names?

Karen, the woman who knows about a dozen languages, and six other people are going to Tirion. None of the ones from hell claim to have remembered their names.

Awwww well okay.

Lórien produces a smooth paved road to Tirion.

That's kind of weird but OK.