What with one thing and another, three days passed.

(A relatively uneventful trip or two across to the Feanorians, so Lalwen can pick up Macalaure's new control of elements song and Amber and Irissë can talk to ghosts. (There are a few ghosts to be talked to. All of them died while fighting for a thing, against an enemy, and are fairly easy to persuade. Their few lines of mechanized script point exactly where they're wanted. The fact that success is easy doesn't make doing it any easier.) Failing to acquire many plant growth spirits, only netting small fish that would ordinarily be thrown back in.

Being conspicuously not conspicuously absent when not busy being conspiciously absent. Helping with the preparation or just talking with people socially.)

What with one thing and another, three days passed.

And the host starts their way across the ice. Macalaure's song is powerful. A bit uneven - it creates some patches of unpleasant heat, some of cold-  but powerful.

The Ice mutters at the mouths of the sea. It's an unusually friendly-sounding mutter, for a collection of grinding noises from ice floe collisions.

The unpleasantly temperatured patches smooth themselves over, faster than convection should normally act. Comfort is one of the early things to change in a practitioner's demesne. Followed by convenience. Paths are surer and navigation easier. Even the wind is reliably at their backs.

They're going to attempt the crossing in a week. 

That is faster than a human non-hiker could normally manage hundreds plural of miles. There are enough avenues of cheating available that it shouldn't matter; it's not like anyone has a clear idea of how fast Amber should or shouldn't be able to cover ground.

Nor are they paying much attention; it's still a demanding hike, if not really treacherous.

As long as everyone's distracted...

Do you know any reason to wait on trying to find the other kingdom? she asks the King.

No scheduled interactions with my brother soon?

No, I finally managed to leave their camp without something being an obviously good idea to come right back. Wonder if Maitimo was doing that on purpose.

He probably was, while he still had things he wanted to learn from you. 

In which case if he's stopped it might confirm that there is some other source of information.

Anyway, the expedition. Is it likely people would notice a missing Man and a missing royal? There's no telling how long it'd take to find the destination, if it works in one trip at all.

I am afraid any of us would in fact be missed, on this trip.

Well, it's not like we're throwing away our shot if we wait a week.

No. As Elves count time even our cousins only just arrived.

I meant more that as far as we know next week isn't any better or worse than this week. But that too.

They cross the ice. They do it safely. There are accidents, but they aren't fatal. It is a brutal and exhausting hike but that's all it is. 

Unfortunately the Feanorians knew they were coming, so they don't get to see the reaction to a host of surprise Elves marching past them out of nowhere.

The Feanorians pull their scouts back and work on their settlement. There are some osanwe conversations but none of those are witnessed. 

Amber, Maitimo says, we have people who want to join family in your host. I told them I'd ask what kind of reception they could expect.

If anyone would rather be in this host than that one they won't be turned away. I can't promise no one will hold the burning against them more than they should, but that's more because it's a large group than because everyone uniformly has a grudge against everyone in your camp. Can I assume the family members want them here as well?

And they'll be suspected of being spies, obviously. She notifies the King that Maitimo asked.

Hmmm. We are also at the moment worse-equipped than they are to feed people. I agree that we shouldn't turn them away, but on principle, not because it seems wise to take them in.

You did say we wouldn't be turning away defectors, is what I was thinking, this shouldn't be worse than that.

Hopefully we'll be better positioned by the time the supplies run low.

I agree that we should not turn them away. I am considering whether there are oaths it'd be appropriate to ask of them.

You do take oaths more seriously than practitioners take statements, so appropriateness might vary. How were the hosts divided in the first place, back when you and presumably most of them thought you'd be coming over together?

It was Feanáro's people who'd stolen the boats, so they were steering them. It was Maitimo who decided who went on, he worked closely with my son on it and he promised he was trying to minimize political drama and ensure the initial landing had everything needed to defend themselves and hold a position while the boats came back.

Oh. I was hoping it'd be more or less random, at least approximately enough that anyone on one side could easily have been on the other. But this is about as far from that as possible, so you might have to err on the side of more oaths rather than less.