"My grandmother," He begins, ponderously. "Had something like that. She burned it when she came to us."

Elene drew the staff for him once, a mass of curving lines in the dirt, branches twisted up as though alive. Alan shakes his head.

"If the elves of old were watching, I'm sure they wouldn't mind. It's sad. But it's a beautiful song. It became that song, too."

The slight crook of a smile.

"And maybe that will plant something in them." He gestures loosely to the room beyond. "Another sort of connection."