Thranduil does not bother to answer, just continues to look pleased with himself. Her question does not go unanswered for long, as the thing that made the noise makes itself known soon after.

The elk dwarfs those of Thedas like Thranduil to the Dalish—massive, the rack barely clearing the space between trees. It poses—one foreleg lifted, caught in the middle of a step, its head turned towards them. Gwenaëlle had lived with Bill the Pony. The fellow did not have the eyes of a normal pony, blank and interested only in hay. There was something beyond the normal depths to them—the stag has much the same look. It watches. It understands.

Thranduil dismounts easily, sheds his glamour in the same motion. He is dressed in the clothes he arrived in Thedas, clearly elven, clearly noble. He holds the reins of Gwenaëlle’s horse to allow her to dismount, offering her his arm for her ease. The elk meanders over, picking his way along the path to join them, ears pricked forward.