"Waaait. Wait. Is this the guy who literally named someone 'vassal'? I have a sister and a father and a mother. I do not have any brothers."

"That's the one. They had a very close relationship, quite enchanted with each other. I have a sister and a brother and a brother and a father and a mother."

"You have two brothers and a sister a mother and a father. You have three siblings and two parents. I don't think asking him for territory would be a terribly good idea, yeah."

"I have a dead brother and a dead sister and am exiled from my mother. I don't think the house of Beor regretted it."

"The House of Beor was founded by the kind of man who would allow himself to be renamed 'vassal.' How they feel about things is unlikely to have much bearing on what would be a good idea for me. I have two dead grandfathers and one dead grandmother and one grandmother I met only once and do not mind not knowing better."

"I have a grandfather dead by the Enemy, I am exiled from my other grandparents. And anyone'd allow themselves to be renamed 'vassal' if they had Finrod singing at them for long enough."

"Your cousin has mind control singing? It is sad when people die. It is wrong when people die."

"We all do, he's just unusually gifted. When they awoke to him sitting in their camp singing, they thought he was a god. It is sad when people die. It is wrong when people die."

"Well. I shall certainly have to warn Odette about that, before she goes, so she can guard against it. It is wrong when people die. It is right when people do not die."

"You'd be fine. It only works on people who aren't familiar with osanwë."

"Good. You have several cousins. You have many cousins. I have no cousins."

"I have several cousins. How many is several? I have no children."

"Several doesn't map to a specific number. It means, mm, more than a few but still reasonable to count individually? Your species does not have children when there is a war. My language has no word for your species."

"Your species does have children when there is a war. If I were your species I still does not have children."

"You still would not have children," she corrects. "I am a member of my species, and I do not have children. I might want to have children someday. I do not currently long for them."

"Magic is not dangerous when having a child?"

"Why would magic be dangerous?"

"It involves exertion of the will, is very painful, you pass out from the pain - it seems like that could have negative effects during pregnancy, no?"

"It doesn't inflict any pain on the baby or anything. And that's all it is, is overstimulation of the nocioceptors. I mean, I guess being stressed out during pregnancy isn't great, but that only precludes the kind of magic I was doing when there were balrogs around, not normal levels."

"Is childbearing not itself an extended effort of the will, for mortals?"

"...One of the reasons childbearing is so difficult is because it hurts. A lot. Which is less of a problem for those of us who've cultivated higher pain tolerances."

"That may be another respect in which we are different. Interesting."

"Is labor more a matter of effort than of pain, for Elves?"

"I don't have children, mind. But not just labor, the whole process. The hard part is nurturing the soul of a new person, it's why the parents should not be separated even briefly during pregnancy -"

"I'm going to file this under 'humans can have accidental children and elves can't'. We don't have anything like that. Women usually don't know for sure they're pregnant for a couple months."