Quendi: absurdly bad at noticing body language. It is known. Also, if they generally raise kings this way maybe Finwë's suffering from the same lack of opportunity to learn basic things that Fëanáro's already displayed some of, and all fifty years' worth of it instead of just twelve. (How do they even survive that, gosh.) This is a plausible and relatively charitable theory and she will definitely have to keep it in mind in future interactions with Finwë.

Fëanáro getting more comfortable is a good thing; she tries not to let the fact that this calms her as well be too obvious, even though it probably wouldn't be noticed anyway.

It wouldn't; they're engrossed in the debate. When it ends Finwe wants to take his son out for lunch and Fëanáro wants to stay here and they have a fight over this. 

Sigh. (No, no sigh, that's not the image she wants to project. Internal sigh.)

Fëanáro, she interrupts.

He turns to look at her, a little tearily. 

c'mere. She scoots over so there's room for him between her and his father and offers a hug.

He hugs her. 

Are you coming to lunch with us? Finwe says to her. 

Yeah, she nods. One minute.

Fëanáro, I'm pretty sure your parent can't just eat lunch here like we can. See how nobody else is? We can do it, because you're little and little kids need things that grownups don't and people will understand that, or at least they should. But your parent isn't just a grownup, they're in charge, and that means they have to do things the right way and show that they respect the rules, so people know that they can trust them to do that when it's important. Understand?

...so he can go. I wanna stay. 

 ...what's Finwë's body language looking like in relation to all this?

He looks stressed and sad. 

They could. They want to eat with you, though. They'll be sad if they don't get to do that.

I always make him sad. It's so hard not to. 

Sigh, hug.

I know it isn't easy for you. But I think it's something you can do, this time, if you want to.

And Fëanáro goes with them to lunch. Very grumpily.

The kobold takes a carefully neutral stance on the grumpiness and keeps an eye on Finwë's reaction to the whole thing.

Finwe looks confused, and a little disconcerted, but catches her eyes and beams at her once she persuades Fëanáro, and shoots her a grateful look a little later. 

Progress! Reasonableness! Hooray! She keeps her smile to a level that's appropriate for 'pleased at having her skill recognized'.

As lunch starts winding down, she says, so, it seemed like it'd make more sense to give a talk about kobolds first, so people have an idea of things, and then ask for help with the translation issue, instead of asking first and having to answer a lot of questions right then and probably give a talk eventually anyway, and I found someone yesterday to help with that since I still don't have enough Quenya to figure out how the talks work myself in enough detail, and we were going to meet them today to work on that. I suspect Fëanáro won't mind going back to watch more debates, though, if you'd rather they stay with you - Fëanáro?

I want to watch more debates, he says instantly.

If that's what gets him tired enough to sleep at night, the King says wearily. 

Doesn't always, but I expect I'll be able to tempt them home with stories about my talk, she grins. And it's nice to see you enjoying something together.

Thank you. And I appreciated it when you talked to him earlier. You did very well at that. 

She beams at him and dips her head in a short bow. That was Speaking, it's an important career among kobolds. I'll be able to do more complicated things as I get to know you more.

It sounded like 'reasoning with my son', which I have a feeling is going to be an important career among the Noldor if he doesn't learn to make himself easier to reason with.  

That gets a chuckle, and she reaches over to squeeze Fëanáro's hand. I expect they'll grow out of that, or into it. A lot of little kids are like that, at least kobold kids; what I was taught about how to Speak to and for kids of their apparent age works just fine.

I find that very reassuring, he says. 

Their focus is a little unusual, but that'll be a strength if they keep it, I think. A kobold twice their apparent age would still have trouble sitting through a full day of something, even if it was something they liked and they didn't have to sit still, it's actually really impressive.