You were on your way to spend some time practicing your writing when a commotion at the edge of camp catches your attention. As you approach you hear yelling and the faint sounds of Marethari trying to calm the situation. You arrive at the source of the noise to find a small crowd gathered around a Dalish woman, holding the hand of a small child, Marethari, Paivel and another elderly Dalish
"Please you have to do something." The woman sobs
"It's alright, just start from the beginning, how long has he been having visions?" Marethari speaks in the tone that one uses when trying to force a situation to be calm.
"It, it began at the start of the year, he would wake up at all hours of the night screaming about how monsters were coming for him. At first I thought they were normal nightmares, but this morning he froze his breakfast and I realised that he was a mage. The dreams have to be demons trying to steal my son away. Please you have to help him." The woman is understandably distraught. She also seems exhausted. Understandable, when your brothers were young no one in your house slept when they did not.
Marethari nods to herself and speaks again "It does sound like your child has magical talent. I'll take him under my wing, teach him to control it."
It is at this point that Paivel speaks, "You already have a first Marethari. Is it really fair to Merrill to split your attention like this? If the child is truly in danger, it is probably best to send him to the circle. The Arlathvhen isn't for another six years, we won't have a chance to send him to another clan before anything happens to him."
The other elder speaks up in response, "After all the humans have done you want to send one of our few mages right to them? Not to mention that a circle will be a glorified prison that he will never leave! Unacceptable."
"And what would you have us do instead? Should we cast him out into the wilds to die? Should we force our keeper to take on two students and risk losing both? The circle is the best option." Paivel raises his voice to a shout.
"I am more than capable of teaching a new student. Merrill is an experience mage and can continue her learning with only light supervision." Marethari's voice is stern but she does not seem to be calming the situation at all, in fact with the way anger is creeping into her tone she is making it worse.
The argument is starting to escalate. No one is moving and they're starting to pass the point where they are making new arguments and moving towards the part where they just yell the same thing over and over with progressively more insults involved. You aren't going to sit back and let any children be abandoned to the woods to die, not again.

This entire argument seems ridiculous to you. Paivel teaches nearly a dozen children at a time but he doubts Marethari's ability to teach two when one is all but finished her learning. Merrill is clearly ready to take on some independent learning if her questions about whether or not you could teach someone your style of magic are anything to go off. You push your way through the crowd and speak.
"Enough. Do you not see the fear you cause in those you claim to defend? Are you so sceptical of your own leader's abilities that you would refuse her a second student?"
Marethari glances at you in surprise. You might have seen a glimmer of gratitude in her expression but its hard to tell. The others turn to you with much more hostile expressions.
"Who are you to speak on such matters, outsider?" Hisses the elder you do not recognise.
"This is certainly none of your concern." Paivel seems to be in agreement with his peer.
"Regardless of whether it was appropriate he is correct." Marethari draws herself up to her full height and looks at both of the elders. "I am the keeper of this clan and I know my own ability. I will teach the boy, it is not so uncommon for keepers to have more than one student Paivel. Areldil, we do not need to send anyone to the circle. Don't the rest of you have things you should be doing?"
As the crowd slowly disperses you catch sight of Paivel and Areldil glaring at you as they leave. Marethari speaks quietly to the woman, arranging for the boy to sleep in her wagon until she's figured out a good way to keep him safe. You're about to head back to your paper production when she touches you on the arm.
"Would you mind following me Nelyafinwë?" she asks.
You see no reason to refuse her, so you do so. She takes you a short way from the rest of the camp, still in sight but beyond easy earshot. She coughs and turns to face you.
"First, I appreciate you coming to my assistance."
You shrug her thanks off, it cost you nothing after all. The corner of her lips quirks slightly before her face returns to its stern cast as she continues.
"However I must ask you not to in future. Though you were trying to help your actions undermined my authority."
Your first instinct is to argue, but fortunately and unlike many of your brothers you do think before you speak. She does have a point. So rather than snapping at her you simply state
"Losing your temper and degenerating to insults also undermines your authority."
Marethari is at least self-aware enough to look embarrassed.
"Yes, well it's easy to get caught up in these arguments. As I said I do appreciate your help, just try to find a way that is less… direct? Confrontational? Something. I don't know."
She runs her hand down her face and sighs a little to herself. You wait for a few moments expecting her to continue but she does not.
"I will endeavour to be more diplomatic if I give any future assistance." You say.
Marethari seems relieved and replies, "Thank you. I'm going to be a bit busy dealing with young Quanil for the foreseeable future. Merrill will likely be pestering you for teaching even more so than usual. Are you planning to teach her anything?"
"I am considering it." You say, "There are many things I wish to see done and I do not know if I will have the time."
Marethari nods to herself a few times. Then she says, "Can she even learn your magic?"
"That is an excellent question." Is your reply.
Her eyes narrow and she asks, "If you don't know if she can learn it why are you even considering teaching her?"
You shrug and answer, "She wants to learn, so I will teach her."
Marethari's face twists unpleasantly, but you do not stop. "There comes a time when every student must seek knowledge for themselves. Whether they succeed or fail is not what matters. What matters is that they seek it, and in the seeking grow."
Marethari falls silent for a long time. When she speaks, she sounds tired. "What if the student makes a mistake. One that will have terrible consequences for everyone?"
You catch sight of Merrill in the distance, reading a book with a look of intense concentration. "Then you and they will face the consequences as they come. No one is ever completely safe. All we can do is prepare as best we can, both ourselves and our students." As you speak, Merrill loses her place when the wind blows her book out of her hands and proceeds to chase it down in a panic
Marethari once again falls silent. You get the sense that there is something more to this conversation that she is not telling you. You do not push, everyone is entitled to their secrets; it is why you do not use your ability to read minds.
She sighs and says, "If I told you not to teach her would you listen?"
You give her a flat look, "No. You do not know enough of my magic to make an informed decision on the matter." The Valar themselves had sought to bar you from returning to Arda and you had not heeded them. Their words had been backed by a curse and knowledge of the future. A mortal who fears the unknown will never sway you.
Marethari chews her lip, "You will be careful though?"
Your lips twist into a somewhat bitter smile, "Should I decide to teach someone, that person will have my protection should Morgoth himself seek their life." Though you would protect anyone from Morgoth just to spite him, you would offer Maeglin himself shelter if it would harm Morgoth.
Marethari shakes her head, "I'm sure if I knew who that was, I'd be impressed. As it stands thank you. I have to go see to my new student now. Farewell."

You spend a moment more in thought before you depart back to what you were about to do before you got yourself involved in that particular conversation.

It has been nearly a month since you arrived in this world, and you still have not introduced yourself to one of the clan leaders. The blonde warrior was hostile when you first arrived but since your conversation with Marethari he seems to have calmed down. Once you started teaching your followers, he has started hanging around your training area looking concerned. It occurs to you that he may suspect that you are creating an army to overthrow him and/or the keeper, or perhaps he just does not care for someone else training his warriors. Neither of which you can honestly blame him for. Given everything that happened in Nagothrond, there's a clear precedent for your family attempting to usurp kingdoms. You yourself would also take someone interfering with the training of your warriors poorly. With this in mind you should also find out what his name is, calling him Vaino in your head, a Quenya name, which is presumably not going to make him more comfortable with you. Finding him is not too troublesome, you just show up to your training area and there he is.
You walk up to him and say "My greetings to you. It occurred to me, no too long ago, that though I introduced myself when we first met, I do not know your name. May I know whom it is who watches my training with such interest?"
He seems taken aback by your words. He makes a few nonsense noises before he manages to get out, "Hi, you're talking very, uh, differently."
You raise an eyebrow. "I have studied your language for nigh on a month, in truth it is embarrassing that I spoke so poorly for so long. Now do you have a name, or should continue to refer to you as Vaino?"
"Oh right, Tamlen. The name's Tamlen. Now that you bring it up, what does Vaino mean?" he replies
You point at his head. "One with yellow hair. It is how I thought of you when we first met."
"Blondie? You've been calling me blondie this whole time? That's a bit rude."
"So is not introducing yourself. I will have you know that calling someone by their hair colour is a perfectly acceptable name." Honestly the vast majority of Noldo names involve hair in some way, two of yours do for example.
"I thought you were a demon or a blood mage, I was just looking after my clan. Beside that how would you like it if I called you, uh, red head?" He sounds very defensive for some reason.
"I hardly see how knowing your name would harm your clan, and Russandol." He looks somewhat confused, so you elaborate, "Russandol means copper top."
He takes a few minutes to recall your full introduction. "Oh, uh. Is that common? To name someone after their hair colour? Where you come from, I mean."
"It is as good a thing to name someone after as any, my brother was named for his dark hair for example. Finwë, my grandfather's name, means something akin to one with long hair as well."
"Ok, so heads up, most people are gonna find it a little insulting if you go around calling them by their hair colour. It's like saying that you don't care about them. So what did you want to talk to me about?"
Straight to the point then, "You have been hanging around my training sessions. I wish to allay any concerns you may have about them."
He stares at you for several moments. "That's. Really? You're just going to walk up to me and… Ok you know what fine. You need to stop training people. Or at least stop teaching them to be warriors."
"I refuse. I see no reason to stop and many reasons to continue." Your followers reflect on you, and they currently reflect poorly.
"I guess you wouldn't know, so I'll explain. How much do you know about our history with the shemlen?" He rubs the bridge of his nose as he asks you this.
"I know you were driven from your homeland. No more though." You reply.
"Right well, when the shemlen came we had an army, a really good one. It wasn't enough to stop them. There are just too of them and they have way more mages than we do, that's not even mentioning the Templars. That doesn't stop the young idiots from going on about reclaiming the Dales from them. It's impossible but they don't see that. You're giving them the tools they need to decide to go off and die in some stupid crusade or just never even see the Dales and become bandits. That brings attention onto us that we can't afford. And all that's before we get into how uncomfortable people find the idea that you're creating your own little army. Nothing good will come of you teaching people to be warriors, you should leave it to people who know what they're doing."

Tamlen raises some excellent points. If a talented young Dalish warrior was rising up and teaching others you might even join him in being concerned. He has overlooked three important facts though. You're not Dalish, you're not young and you've been doing this since before his father's father was born. You take a moment to collect your thoughts before you speak.
"I understand your concern," You begin, "but I am no young fool seeking glory before wisdom. Well do I know that no force of fifty can take on the armies of a kingdom. The first and most foundational of my teachings is discipline. If I do end up training these young fools you fear, they will find their foolishness corrected. All of which assumes that I would ever allow one of my warriors to depart on a suicide mission without stopping them."

Tamlen looks at you for a long minute before he sighs and runs his hand down his face. When he speaks it is with the tone of one who expected to be ignored but felt it was his duty to speak anyway.
"Did you even listen to me? I tried to make allowances for the fact you're an outsider, but clearly, I shouldn't have bothered. It's not about training or discipline. It's about anger and hate. Shemlen took everything from us, all who didn't become beggars in an alienage ended up wandering from place to place looking for a home. But there isn't one. Our only option to reclaim our land lies in a war with the shemlen. I know this everyone knows this, and you're training an army. Why would the Dalish need an army if not to war with shemlen? You send a message with your actions and people listen to you. Despite this you refuse to understand the context and consequences of your actions. And your response to fears that you're growing an army is that it's too well trained to disobey you? Do you even care about the anybody aside from yourself?"
"You would have your people down arms then. Simply accept whatever may come their way even as you camp not a day's walk from a forest animated by dark magic? That is foolhardy at best and cowardly at worst." Anger starts to creep past your control to colour your voice.
"I would have my people survive as they have always survived! I would not tempt the shemlen by forming an army! I would have my people taught by their own kind and not some monster from beyond the fade! I would have cast you from the clan like the ill omen you are!"

Your control snaps and your anger surges forwards, ready to savage this stripling who dares to claim that he knows better than you.
Your eyes narrow in fury and your voice drips with all the venom you can put into it. "Cower then. Hide from all the evil of the world and pray that the steel of your betters preserves you. It's what I'd expect from a late-comer. I will not turn my eyes from the darkness of the world nor refuse those with the courage to stand against it.".
Tamlen shakes his head and scoffs, "I don't know what I thought would happen. You said you fought in a war? Are you trying to relive your glory days? Or do you just think that more soldiers are the answer to every problem, you paranoid wreck? I've seen you, you wear armour everywhere you go. I bet you see enemies around every corner. I'm going to do my everything in my power to convince the keeper to throw you out. For some reason she seems to have accepted your presence among us so I don't have high hopes. But know this, if you bring harm to the clan, to any of the Dalish, you will answer to me."
As he turns to storm off you can't help but send one last barb at his back, "Perhaps if you were half the warrior you think you are, I might be worried by your threats. As things currently stand I would be more afraid of a single sheet of paper. Those can actually harm me, even if only in a minor way."

Once Tamlen has left you sigh, that was not how you had hoped this conversation would go. You wonder where his courage went or if he ever had any. Perhaps it was only the lack of real contestants that had him as the clan's head warrior. Still, within that diatribe of misdirected venom he did raise a good point. You have habitually worn your armour since you arrived, still stuck in the mindset that an attack could come at any time. It might be time to start wearing more comfortable clothes. For a moment you find yourself quite enthused with the idea. Perhaps a nice robe made to fit you, something to really let you relax and enjoy your peace.

A cold wind blows from the cursed section of the forest, it sends a shiver to your bones despite your cloak making it impossible to feel the cold. You are rudely awakened from your dreams of a peaceful life. Every moment you have spent over the river has you on edge. The taint of dark magic and weight of loss hangs over the land like a sword suspended by a single thread. That is not to mention the tales of strange humanoid wolf creatures you have heard some of the other hunting parties share. This camp does not have strong defences, it is not manned by mighty warriors. If an attack comes, you may have to face it effectively alone. This could be fixed if you have time to train their warriors, though it seems that has not been without consequence. You do not think that this camp is as safe as everyone seems to think. Rivers are good wards against the darkness, but they are not impenetrable, nor are they as good as strong walls manned by skilled defenders. You stand positioned, as you had been at Himring, in the borderlands between darkness and the rest of the world. If the hammer blow falls it will fall here. So, you must ask yourself why it is you find this cursed land at your back so often.

Your eyes stare into the south. At the Kokari wilds, if the maps are correct. You left hand stings as you rub your right wrist, seeking to soothe the phantom pains. As much as the forest fills you with dread, with a sense of wrongness, it is the south you find most discomforting. You feel as you did whenever you stared at Angband. As though you beheld a doom long expected, that you had hoped might pass you by. Perhaps it is the faint line of clouds on the horizon. Perhaps some devilry of the Unseen works on you. Perhaps it is your connection to the world around you telling you of some evil to the south. Whatever the reason Tamlen is wrong. You are not paranoid, you are the only one with eyes in a land of blind men. Whatever it is you fear, you know that your warriors aren't ready. You're not ready either. You pull your cloak around you to ward off the chill that seeks to settle on your bones. You will be, you'll train your warriors and yourself until both are a match for the Noldor who first humbled Morgoth beneath the stars.

Something stirs in the wilds.