Maglor was confused. Several minutes after showing no knowledge of Quenya, Sindarin or Westron, one of the girls had answered his question and addressed him in what was undeniably Quenya, badly accented as it was. He couldn't understand their language but their emotions were clear; they were terrified of him, but the one who had introduced herself as Patricia seemed... curious. She sat up slowly on the sand and stared at him.

"Maglor?"

"Ná," he answered. She grinned and turned to her friend.

"Did you hear that? He said 'yes'! In Quenya! He speaks Quenya!" she exclaimed.

Her friend frowned. "Quenya? Maglor? Wasn't he some elf you told me about?"

Patricia's eyes widened in disbelief. "Some elf?! SOME ELF?!!?! Maglor wasn't just SOME elf! He was the greatest Minstrel in all of Arda! Son of Fëanor! Prince of the Noldor!" she shouted.

Maglor frowned. "Man tye ithte atarinya?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at the human girl; she seemed to know something about his past... Maybe, just maybe, she knew about the Silmaril... where it had been found... anything. Anything would help.

She cowered back and averted her eyes. "I don't understand you... I'm sorry..." she whimpered. "Look, if you can come with me, I'll be able to print out a dictionary and talk to you!"

Her friend whispered something to her and she replied with an angry glance. "No! I'm not leaving him here. Maybe... maybe if we started walking, he'd follow us?"

"We WANT him following us?"

"Yes! We can't leave him here, can we? Look at him! He's starving!"

"Trisha, he's NOT an elf!"

Patricia placed her hands on her hips and glared daggers at the other girl. "Then what is he? Could you pretend to be that?!" she exclaimed, gesturing at Maglor. She was right... up close he was even more surreal. He looked translucent, supernatural; the light in his eyes was unbearably brilliant and very much real to the point that she expected him to start literally glowing when the sun went down. And he was beautiful; the most flawless being that either of them had ever seen.

The shorter girl frowned, unconvinced. "Does he have pointy ears?"

"Let's find out." Patricia turned to Maglor, who had been standing there silently while they argued. She grimaced for a second then met his eyes. "...Maglor?" she asked, and then mimed pulling her hair up to expose her ear then pointing at him.

Maglor frowned at her. She wanted to see his ear? Did she want to know if he was an Elf or not? Perhaps he should show her... perhaps if she knew something it would be good for her to have validation. He mimicked her gesture, pulling his hair back to reveal a delicately pointed ear.

Patricia's mouth fell open, but her friend cocked her head and stared at the ear. "Is that fake?" she asked, reaching up and tugging at the tip.

He jerked back and let his hair drop. "Avá!" he hissed menacingly, causing the girl to cower back and stammer something he guessed was an apology. What had she done that for?

"...g-goheno... uhh... her," Patricia stammered, gesturing at her friend. "Say 'goheno nín'!" she whispered to her.

"Goheno nín!" her friend exclaimed, repeating it several times for good measure. Finally Maglor nodded.

"Ná," he replied, crossing his arms over his chest once more then uncrossing them to rub the tip of his ear. He knew his brothers wouldn't have been so forgiving, or so accommodating in the first place for that matter, but he had no choice. He had no idea how long it had been, or how much had changed, or how to even begin to speak their language. At this point, he had no choice but to trust them.

Patricia sighed with obvious relief. "Karri," she stated, pointing at the other girl.

Karri looked up at Maglor worriedly and mumbled a greeting. "So what do we do now?" she asked Patricia.

"We see if he'll come with us..." she replied, turning to look at the Elf. "...come?" she asked hesitantly, beckoning to him with one finger. To her immense relief, he followed.

"I hope you're not making a BIG mistake, Trisha," Karri murmured as they walked back up the beach.

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Now, that wasn't so hard, was it? Winces I'm sorry. I'm getting there, though... Just a couple more installments and I'll be back to where I was before... I hope...