" - sorry, I really haven't been around people much. It's a people thing? Sure."

"It's a people thing. Thanks." On counterfactual-Beren's behalf.

After a while they head back to the main body of elves.

She would like to cuddle Beren.

They do that.

There is more walking. Malak continues to be really impressed by the length of the Sirion. Also Doriath. That is a lot of trees.

The trees end. The river spreads out. Have they reached the mouth yet? No, they have not. Rivers are soooo loooong.

It hasn't been very long at all, really, if you are hundreds or thousands of years old. 

Their surroundings continue to be devoid of people and buildings and there is so much of it. It's weird! Malak has lived one hundred and three years and not spent more than two consecutive weeks outside of a city of a hundred thousand or more. (They don't announce their age out loud again, shouldn't remind people that they are actually a baby by local standards.)

Malak and Beren go on a few more walks to help counterfactual Beren. Malak explains to Lúthien that they would go on long walks with Beren if he were OK so that she would not be able to conclude that long walks meant Beren was not OK.

They reach a series of waterfalls. The elves spend some time gawking. Malak tries to develop a healing spell while they walk but makes no progress for weeks and eventually gives it up.

Lúthien has better than Elven hearing and is totally listening when they go out for walks. But whatever. 

We're probably far enough south.

Malak does not know this and is thus not annoyed with her in the slightest.

OK! I don't know much - anything - about settlement building, so I may have outlived my usefulness here. And I should probably check in at Nargothrond soon. But now that I know where you guys are I can come visit when I have time.

Thank you. For everything.

You're welcome. Thank you.

Hug

I look forward to seeing you again.

And they're off, northwest towards Nargothrond and much less wonderful company.

They are not disturbed.

Nargothrond! Knock knock.

It is good to see, ah, him again, by all means come in.

Yep, he sure is a him. He is so great at gender.

They'd like to go talk to Curufin and see how spell development is coming, is now a convenient time for that?

He's busy at the moment but they'll let Malak know as soon as he's free.

Good, it would be rather weird if he wasn't. They will go look around Nargothrond, it is very pretty and there are large parts of the city they never saw.

They will have a slightly tense escort.

...Would it be more comfortable for everyone else if they were to wait in a room alone with guards at the door and the presence of their mind kept public rather than hidden? So that the guards would know if they tried to sneak off. Because frankly that would be more agreeable to them as well, they just didn't want to impose by asking for a room.

If that works for them, yes, that does sound less stressful.

They go to a room. They close the door behind them. They make their presence public.

They dismiss their shapeshift because ugh, they'd been wearing that shape for a month, constantly, oh wow their head feels so much lighter. They run fingers through their hair now that there are no elves to see.

They sit down and start thinking about divination and how to build a true seeing spell.

And eventually they are notified (by a knock on the door so they can shapeshift again if they need to) that Curufin is free.

They can't shapeshift into braided hair but they've gotten lots of practice and they can be decent reasonably quickly.

They consider teleporting to Curufin's office but that would just make the guards more nervous so they walk instead.

"Hello - you all right?"

"I'm well, Lúthien is well, Beren is surprisingly well, everyone else we freed is unsurprisingly not OK. I still make people here uncomfortable so hopefully this can be a rather short stay. How goes the spell development?"

He pulls out notes. They are rather extensive.