1 & 2) I'll stick with it as one chapter, then, if it works. Breaking it up, you're right, the changes made will make for two chapters that might, individually, actually be weaker. Fun as it would be to show Maevyn coping with the berry incident, it's better left as essentially an anecdote: happened the other day, embarrassing as heck, leave it at that.

3) I like that, about Leni's parents maybe not allowing nettles to grow anywhere the kids could get into them. "Oh, honey, don't touch that, Mommy and Daddy will come back later and replant it where it can be happy somewhere far far away..." Those hippy Elves.

4) Not one, not two, but three ways I could re-tackle that scene: incredibly helpful! I'll probably settle on some combination approach. Really like the idea, as you said, of bringing it back to Hrahragh's own linguistic shortcomings, that is *nice*.

5) ...and he just spent the last minutes yelling at her in a way that I think is generally unprecedented in the history of orcs yelling at their captives ("Learn your vocabulary, snaga!") --> This cracked me up. Ok, fair enough.