Yeah, you see much better than us. I don't see heat, I feel it. Aleko can't even do that. He's just seeing dark and stars. I'd light up the place but it'd ruin what adjustment to the dark we've managed.

Aleko, want me to continously project what I'm seeing? It takes a while to get used to using someone else's eyes but it totally works.

"Shh."

Aleko's not interacting with your telepathy like that till I know more about how it works.

Your call, Aleko, he says a bit pointedly. And I'm happy to come within range of you, if you'd like, we're gonna need you to cross the Ice so you may as well trust us.

In case you can't tell, Aleko is deferring to me on this one. You can approach.

So he does.

They are smaller than Elves, or perhaps not fully grown. They're dressed strangely. 

We're not going to get any taller, she remarks. If you'd like finer control over what I read you can stand just there - She sends a distance. And stick out a hand and drop it if your thoughts stray to something sensitive.

No secrets here. The Valar aren't around for you to run to about my personal life, and there's, y'know, a war.

Right then. What's on his mind.

He's trying to think what kind of being they are - Men? They're not Dwarves, there's eventually gong to be other kinds but no one really knows, and then they're from a different universe so even that might not apply. He's thinking how if she goes murderous out here or turns out to be a valarauka at least they're away from the tents, though Father might do something stupid... He's thinking how fast they can cross the ice if it can be melted through cleanly, what will the Enemy have had time to achieve on the other side.

We call ourselves "humans". What's a valarauka?

All we have are vague stories. Fire-demons, serve the Enemy, very dangerous.

How's your telepathy work?

Can send thoughts, and read them. Range depends on how well you know someone. It's a few hundred miles if you've known them for hundreds of Years. You keep your thoughts private by habitually designating some that way... he runs through how this is done - and then in principle no one but Mandos can hear them.

And there's no suspicious reflection of her or Aleko in Tyelcormo's mind. She murmurs instructions to her brother and he switches from thinking about what he had for lunch to thinking about how the heck to do that.

It sometimes takes months to learn, but I can tell everyone not to read you if it makes you nervous.

I suspect I have the hang of it for myself. Aleko's working on it. You may check me.

Can't hear anything. If you want I can keep checking and let you know if you forget and stop doing it.

Is there a reason not to warn me before doing that?

If what you want to know is whether you're doing it even when you're not thinking about it, prompting you to think about it will not be informative.

All right, if Aleko wanders out of my range and indicates it's a good time you may check me on his say-so, he'd have a reasonable chance of guessing if I was thinking about anything particularly essential. She relays this to Aleko in Welchin.

Lot of secrets to keep?

I have been an involuntary mind-reader since I was eight. I take mental privacy very seriously.

Okay. I'll ask your brother. 

You want to learn a word or two of Welchin or teach him some of whatever you speak?