Nymeria noticed abstractedly that the deer at Thranduil’s flank turned to look up at his (her?) bonded. She fancied that there was something hard in those alien eyes, something incomprehensible and distant from her realm of understanding. Then again, she supposed, companions were private creatures more often than not, and the workings of their minds were myriad and mysterious even to the bonded. At this very moment, for example, Lilómiel's mind was pulsing with erratic alarm and fenced off with wire and flame. Every now and then one of his thoughts would hammer itself into place among her own, disturbing and foreign, a plea for her to awaken, to open her eyes—they were poisonous and rancid weeds among her beatific gardens, insidious drips of oil contaminating her bright-as-liquid-diamond rivers.

Naturally, she ignored him and his paranoia—she could not fathom his concern, or why it would take on such a malicious form. Memories twisted and reformed to fit Thranduil’s lie, she was deaf and oblivious to Lilómiel’s wisdom, and hence she dismissed his concern as trivial and zealous jealousy. Her only exception to her ignorance was the question she asked of Thranduil (your name?), an attempt to appease Lil's irrational suspicions.

I asked again, she offered to her companion, confused over his festering frustration; I asked for his name as you bid me. What Lilómiel had been expecting she didn’t quite know; Thranduil was splendorous, and his title was part of that. He would not lie about his name, not to her, but Lilómiel cawed and crooned his distaste nevertheless. With a thump of dark wings, he circled downwards to land upon her shoulders, flame licking about his jaws. Twice had his fire burned flesh: and twice had that flesh been unicorn. Gladly would he burn thrice.

A lid shuttered swiftly over a bright eye—Thranduil returned her wink, bypassing her question. Nymeria, not virginal to the way of cunning and cleverness, let slide his tactful sidestep. As she had communicated to Lil through a broad sketch of disappointment at his request, she had expected nothing different from the Laurelin; and so, with a lightness to her air suggesting an apologetic nature, Nymeria said  “I suppose you did.” She turned her head sharply to eye her companion, who shook out his feathered wings and flicked his razor tail-tip. With a final chirp of resentment, Lilómiel swallowed the embers dripping and sizzling about his black jaws.

The gesture was, however, somewhat undermined by the sulphurous gray smoke twisting up from his nostrils.

For a moment she was tempted to apologize on his behalf to Thranduil, but she restrained herself. It was not worth an apology, she decided; he did not know the mind of her bonded, or how her bonded imagined that silken gold coat going up in flames. Professing an apology for his nefarious behaviour would not serve any greater motive.

Lass, Thranduil says, and Nymeria quirks up a brow in admonishment. Lass was hardly a flattering term for a woman such as her, with her full curves and thick hips; he could, at the very least, call her by name and not some off-hand, vexing compliment.  “Not lass—“ she interrupts him, ignoring his question,  “I am Nymeria, értékes..” She gives pause for what she hopes will be an apology, and thinks back to what… "villagers" she has recently terrorized.
No villager, Lilómiel grumbles. Queen.

The grullo's lips hint at a malicious smile; she shifts her weight, propping a hind hoof up. “I have not been terrorizing villagers, Thranduil. Do you think so little of me?” It’s a tease more than anything, a bit of an amicable flirt with him—and a prod for his affection, his answer.

Lilómiel rolls his eyes.