"Mandos is one of the Valar, of whom there are fifteen, one of whom is - not in good standing and therefore imprisoned by his fellows. The Valar are intermediate between Maiar, who are smaller in scope and more varied in psychology but similar in kind, and Eru Ilúvatar, who is broader in scope and different yet again psychologically. I suspect the latter of sending me or acquiescing to my being sent but I do not know why."

"Eru...Iluvatar..." she sounds like she's having a little trouble processing, then gestures upwards with a querying expression.

"He lives on our moon, if that's what you mean, although even when the moon does not happen to be above one's current position it is customary to conceptualize him as overhead."

"Not moon," she snorts, shaking her head, then shakes it dismissively; she doesn't expect Mirelote to understand what she meant by that. "Not...not Valar, not Eru Iluvatar, not Maiar," she says, making a broad sweeping gesture around them.

"...I'm not sure what you're getting at. I know that you are some other thing than the species I'm acquainted with and that this probably implies I am not on either of the planets I have visited before."

"...Either of the planets?"

"I was born on a planet called Endorë and when I was a child the Valar invited the Elves to come live on Valinor, and my family was among those who chose to accept. There's transit between the two, sometimes, I honeymooned on Endorë."

"One planets," she attempts. "...Not sure not one planets? With--" she makes an encompassing gesture--"Maiar Valar Orcs Dwarves Elves--" she gestures to herself and her sister.

"I'm - not sure what you're getting at, I'm sorry - at least not if I assume you aren't forgetting vocabulary after it's introduced, maybe you are - does your species have a name -"

"Forget," she nods, and, "humans."

"Pleased to meet you, humans," says Mirelótë. "Would it help if I wrote things down? I think I have seen evidence that you have writing -"

Giggle. "Writing," she nods, and pulls a pen and some paper out of her bag.

"Would you like the Quenya alphabet to start out or should I just write vocabulary words?"

"Alphabet."

Mirelótë writes down the tengwar, names them, and starts writing down each and every word she has used so far in a tidy list.

Odette nods and starts transcribing them.

Mirelótë reads aloud as she writes - "I don't know how whatever you're doing to translate works, can you read Quenya without my speaking aloud? Everything is phonetic."

"Translate--not writing."

"Spoken translation only, I see."

"Translation..." she looks over the list of vocabulary words. "I--understand. More humans not understand your language. Humans understand our language, you are here, you want our language and us your language?" she tries.

"I would be delighted to learn your language. I will even have the advantage of not forgetting vocabulary words."

"Not forgetting," she sighs enviously, and starts going down the list and translating the vocabulary words as best she can.

Mirelótë nods along and guesses at what nuance might be missed when Odette hesitates to translate a word and asks for conjugations.

Illia helps with conjugations once they've said enough things in this language--Genoshan--for her to have any idea how to help.

"Thank you."