Nod. "I would be honored to tell him a human story later, if he would like to offer anything to you? Although I'm afraid it might lose something in translation."

Translation. 

"He says perhaps once some of our people who love languages have made themselves more familiar with yours, he'll have a capable translator. And...that you are of our house now and there should be ...I don't know how to translate this - you can tell him stories if you'd like and not worry about balancing and I'll explain more later."

Nod.

"He asks if you'd tell him the story of how we came to be acquainted."

"Of course."

She has not rehearsed this at all, but she knows how to give performances while terrified. As long as she stays in performance headspace she should be fine.

She was visiting the kingdom of Sweden, to the north of here, with her children, and had been taking a walk in the forest when she and her son happened on a fairy circle. There she met a fairy, who suggested that she might come with him, rather than return to the castle with the rest of her party. She replied that only two of her five children were with her - one still in the Swedish castle, and two in the next kingdom over, in Norway - and that she would not abandon the others. He suggested that they might be able to leave a message for them, and allow all of her children to join her in the fairy realm. She accepted this, and had no love for her previous liege, and therefore decided to stay. He explained the concepts of debt and fortune to her, as fairies understood them, and she provided him with stories. Eventually they traveled south, to this court, in search of food and guidance.

The conversation proceeds from there in Quenya in a while.

Eventually, "all right, we can go. Bow again."

She bows and follows, taking her son's hand to be sure he doesn't walk off in some other direction without her.

The third room on the left has just one light, set in a thick wood stand. It has a big, soft bed, and a smaller unadorned bed on the floor, and a crib against the far wall, right below the window. There are curtains. There's a pitcher with water on the table and a box next to the bed which he moves under the bed as soon as he sees it. 

She watches him put the box away. She doesn't ask what's inside it. 

She stands by a wall and holds her baby and lets go of her son's hand. He looks up at her and then sits on the floor where he is.

"Is she - will you be able to feed her yet or -"

"I'll try. Probably it'll take a couple days to get it back, though. Haven't had this problem before."

"Okay. We'll pack a lot of food when we head out. - you're okay?"

"Yes. It's - uncomfortably like home."

Hug. "How so?"

Tentative hug.

"I don't want to say anything - insulting, to anyone, I doubt it's anyone's fault in particular. I'd just - there are rules, and I can guess them but can't see them, and everything's - formal, and meant to mean things, and standing in for things I don't understand all of, and it feels like it might be dangerous to say anything and might be disadvantageous to appear - more than the appropriate level of frightened. I don't know, it's - hard to point to things. 

"I hadn't noticed how much less afraid I'd been until it all came back."

"They're not going to hurt you. 'd be incredibly rude to me."

Nodnod.

She really really doesn't want to stop being hugged, though.

Hugs are good.

"How long are we staying?"

"So I was going to just ask my father my questions now and leave tomorrow but - 

- but maybe we should stay until you get your milk back, at least if it's only going to be a few days, because if you don't they can probably do something for the baby here and I don't know what we'd do out there."

"Yeah. Okay.

" - I don't think I'll actually mind it very much, staying for a few more days, it's just - I don't know. Like getting to see the sun after half a lifetime underground and panicking the first time there's a sunset."

"I hate it here."

"I think I don't like it very much either. I mean it's - maybe if I were less - like this. Maybe then I wouldn't mind it."

"But maybe you would, because it's terrible.

I - love my family, and I ...trust them very much to be the way that they are, no matter what? I guess that doesn't sound very flattering but it is important, caring about me is part of the way that they are. 

But I don't like interacting with them very much. They're smarter and I'm always just - barely keeping up."