"Not every day. And one thu'um makes ice. Ice is cold, cold food stays good longer." She remembers the little trick with ice wraith's teeth she learned from Marice; making her frost breath smaller so she could use it for the same thing had been the first time she'd ever properly meditated on a shout.

The forest is a bit farther than they traveled through the swamp, but they are not travelling through a swamp so getting there is a little bit faster.

"Stay close, be careful," Finyalambë says in two languages before heading into the trees.

After a little bit of searching, he finds a small clearing, and starts to sing. His voice is smooth and clear and deep, and echoes strangely through the trees. He sings of how a clever woman stole a star from the sky, and took it apart to see how it was made. With that secret knowledge she gained, she made another. She taught her children, and her children's children, and together they made stars to rival those in the sky above. And though she passed away from this world, her successors took the stars and laid them upon a hill until it shone with day unending, and they raised a city there and the light kept it safe from all evil. The city was safe and people came from far and wide to marvel at its beauty.

A deer wanders into the clearing. Finyalambë sings to it about the beauty and safety of the city of stars and strokes its fur and snaps its neck.

"We should leave, now, people will have heard that. Bad people live here."

Malielle watches in fascination. The sound reminds her of words of power, in a way, and she wonders if it works like the dragon tongue.

She nods at his words. "Lead the way; I can carry the deer."

It's definitely magical in some way. She had a feeling of trust and safety and curiosity that had built up gradually over the course of the song - not really noticeable as it built, but much more so as it quickly fell away after Finyalambë stopped singing.

Finyalmbë hands off the deer and heads back out of the woods at a brisk walk, not stopping until they're a good quarter-mile from the treeline.

Yeah she doesn't really approve of mind-affecting things that affect her as well, but she's more curious than annoyed.

"Is it safe here?" she asks, stumbling through the translation in yaisalambe. 

"Safe enough for now. We will need to walk more far from the forest for sleeping."

"Walk farther," she corrects as she sets the deer down, along with the bundle of kindling and fallen branches she'd gathered as they first walked in. "If you want to start a fire, I can get more wood."

"I don't have a flint, and I don't know how to start a fire without a flint."

"I have a spell. A spell is like a thu'um."

"I have spells - songs and also other kinds - but recovering spell energy takes many days. Does your energy recover faster?"

"Much faster than that. I used to have potions that would make magicka - spell energy - recover faster, but not anymore." She still hasn't explained how she ended up here; she can do that over food. She sets about starting a small fire and preparing the deer - just small amounts, from the cuts that'll cook fastest. 

Finyalambë seems confused by the explanation. That's not terribly surprising - it's a confusing explanation.

"So... you were sent here by an Ariâ, you say. And you are like an Ariâ - you have strange magic, and much of it."

"The different between me and a Daedric Prince is far greater than that. I think my plane might have more magic than this one; I know few spells, out of all there is to know."

"I think the difference is not how many spells there are - we have very many spells - the difference is how fast your magicka returns. The Eriai - the word is from yelillambë, so that's the plural - vary in power. I have fought an Ariâ and won, but the greatest of them... A long time ago, when I was young, there was a second light in the sky, like the sun but white. The Eriai put it out, in their war. Other Eriai built the Bulwark in its place." - he points to the band of white in the sky, still brightly shining even in the daylight.

"The word means, hm. Something like 'a great person from the place outside of the world'. It is not a good translation, my Tamrielic is still not very good. But I think you fit."

She thinks for a bit, then says, "I do not think I would fit that with just my world's magic, since our spells aren't always all that - flexible. I can't hunt very effectively with them, and would be limited in a fight. The thu'um might qualify, though, especially the way I use it."

"I suppose. This is very strange. I would think this is a trick, but..."

"But? And a trick by who?"

"I suppose if you are truly from another world you would not know. I am from Elinost, the city of stars. We have an enemy, who calls himself Gorvaethor - "dread warrior" - and has urged our neighbors to attack us. We went to fight him, because we thought he was weak, but we were wrong. He took me, and hurt me, and when he was done he left me in the swamp and told me he was leaving me alone to die."

"I'm sorry."

"He - I do not know if you have the word for it - he said truly that I was useless to him and useless to Arélen and that he and his servants would not trouble me any more. So. You are not a trick of his. He liked tricking people, but now I'm free of that."

"I'm uncertain how you could tell if someone was speaking the truth without a spell, and that wouldn't keep them from changing their mind later."

"You probably don't have a word for it then. Since you don't have the concept. An Anno or Angli can say things in a way that the words cannot be lies and they cannot change their mind. Ewerthaid cannot. You seem a lot like an awarthad, apart from your magic. And your skin, which is darker than theirs usually gets."

"That sort of tool sounds both useful and dangerous. If you attack Gorvaethor, can he then still not trouble you? And it's interesting; your world's ewerthaid sound similar to my world's men, and the annalie to my world's mer. I'm a Breton, halfway between the two."

"He is not foolish. He had escape clauses. If I actively trouble him at all, if I return to Rainë or to any of a dozen other places he listed. If I send word, directly or indirectly, to Arélen. We don't Truly Say things often, especially not about future actions. Gorvaethor does so more frivolously, but he's still very careful."

"How indirectly is indirectly? If I gather the information separately, and take it to Arelen, will it count against you? Does he have to learn about your return to be able to trouble you? And careful enemies are very annoying."