"I WOULD BE DELIGHTED TO SING YOU A SONG BUT MOST OF THE SONGS I KNOW ARE VERY SAD. WOULD YOU PREFER A HAPPY ONE?"

"A sad song is quite all right."

She sings a sad song.

The Men gather around, awed. They cry. They clap. "They'll tell their grandchildren that once they saw an Elf," the old woman says.

"I WISH I HAD SOMETHING MORE USEFUL TO DO. I COULD EXPLAIN PLUMBING BUT PERHAPS YOU DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME FOR PLUMBING."

"I don't think so, no."

"WHAT'S YOUR NAME? I'M MIRELOTE AMBELA."

"Badhril. Thank you for visiting us."

"THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME FIGURE OUT WHERE I AM. COULD I HAVE A FEW PHRASES IN THE LOCAL LANGUAGE IF I NEED TO TALK TO MEN WHO HAVE NOT HAPPENED TO LEARN ANY THINDARIN?"

"What do you want to know how to say?"

"'HOW DO YOU SAY', HELLO, PLEASE, THANK YOU, YES, NO, WHERE WHEN WHO HOW WHY WHAT, ANYTHING ELSE THAT SEEMS PARTICULARLY USEFUL IN YOUR OPINION."

She offers all those and "does anybody speak Sindarin".

"THANK YOU," Ambela repeats in the local language.

Toothless smile. "There you go."

Ambela curtsies to her and heads off over toward the mixed Valian and "tree Elf" population, traveling in such a way as to live off the land en route.

It takes a week or so. The land at least is pretty, if occasionally dotted with villages of Men which are all terrible. On one occasion in the distance she can hear orcs.

Are the orcs saying anything interesting?

The language is too different from the orcish she knows to really guess. They're carrying axes and javelins and don't sound precisely happy.

"I am hoping," she says to the empty wilderness, "that my being here at all means you have decided it would be fabulously entertaining to have the place renovated to match your - neighbor - and can't bear to do it yourself. I will not be at all fetchingly engaged in the story if instead dreadful things happen to me. I will just be annoyed."

Eru does not see fit to answer this, apparently.

Yeah she wasn't expecting him to.

She travels and avoids the poor orcs and when she is near ??Elves?? she starts broadcasting that she is a lost Elf.

And after a while some Elves drop out of the trees. She's been to Ossiriand, in her Endorë; that's the closest match racially. They're carrying longbows and quivers of arrows; they look tense. 

"Hello."

"Hello. Please don't shoot me. I'm lost and someone told me I could find other Elves around here."

"It is not unprecedented for the Enemy to assume fair forms," the Elf says, but none of them draw the weapons.

"I'm not the Enemy, working for him, or in disguise for any reasons, I swear. I'll swear any other assurances you'd find useful."