And Elspeth eats berries and tells people whatever they want to know and sings to the bush and dances for whoever wants to watch.

And the Noldor think they've figured out how to use the Silmarils, and would like their hosts to designate a site for testing.

Testing what? What are they using the Silmarils to do in particular?

They are using the Silmarils to bring all particle behavior in an area to a complete halt. 'stopping time' is one way of thinking about it, if it works as intended. They are testing whether this works like it should; then they'll test if it's fatal to people caught in the radius; then they'll try it against the Enemy.

Maaaaaybe they should try animals before they try people just a thought.

Sure, if Doriath lets them import some. They're going to try orcs when they try people, so it's not like anyone might die who's not slated for execution anyway.

There's songbirds. Elspeth can catch them live songbirds if they are having trouble with that.

Great. They'll try it on songbirds first.

Which she'll go collect after they have results on the first test.

First test: it looks like it's working, but when they remove it the area under effect crumbles into dust. No songbird test after all, probably - though it still might totally suffice against the Enemy -

Or it might not do that! Especially since there are two of him.

Yeah. They'll keep working.

What's everybody else besides these ten engineers up to?

Preparing for a war against Doriath if it should be necessary, obviously! And trying to coordinate feeding their entire non-expendable population while stuck within the small radius outside Doriath that's still protected.

Well, she's tapped out on agriculture knowledge. Does Melian want more interesting custom plant challenges?

Melian: also planning for possible war after the Enemy's defeated. Sorry.

Hey Noldor did you know you could maybe get help feeding people if you could credibly arrange not to have a war.

There won't be a war if they give the Silmarils back.

If only somehow common knowledge of this fact and also a guarantee of the return of the Silmarils could be negotiated. Someone should get on that. Sounds like a job for a King.

He communicates to Doriath that if they will swear to return the Silmarils he will swear not to start a war with them. 

They are pretty sure there's a loophole somewhere in that. 

It actually doesn't sound that bad to her but maybe he's being cute about what "start" means. Certainly it's worth being sure about the wording. Maitimo himself introduced her to this useful "swear I would accept this oath from a hostile party" clause.

Maitimo will swear that, if the Silmarils and engineers are permitted to return safely to his territory, then he will not authorize, make it known he'd desire, or permit those under his command to carry out any acts of war against Doriath including killing their citizens, entering their territory or airspace without authorization, using the Silmarils at them, inciting anyone else to go to war with them, violating the terms of any treaties between them, or attempting to deliberately provoke them into doing any of the same, excepting if Doriath carries out any of the aforementioned acts of war against him. 

If Doriath'd like an extra layer he could swear that he doesn't expect that a maximally inconvenient sourceless truth that Elspeth might receive would reveal a flaw in this plan!

The most inconvenient sourceless truth he can think of is that he doesn't expect Doriath to keep to their ends and would probably enjoy winning a war if they start one.

He swears to this.

Cool. It's a good thing she didn't break his face too badly to say things indefinitely. So now if Doriath doesn't want a war they could arrange that.