Huh. I hadn't noticed that yet - descriptions instead of names, sometimes, but not extra names. Good to know, that might've been confusing.

Some people will use their fathername formally and their mothername interpersonally and have a chosen name with their spouse. That sort of thing. 

Nod. That doesn't sound too hard to keep track of, I should be all right. Thank you.

She looks over her notes again. I think the next thing to do is get these all organized into different talks, and then see what kinds of detail each one needs. Or - maybe I should give one talk first, before we try to plan the rest too much? That means more time between them, or at least between the first and the rest, but the talks themselves will be better suited to what people are interested in, I'm not sure which matters more here.

I don't think people will mind more time passing at all.

Nod. All right.

I wonder if I should paint some things, to show. I don't think I'm even close to Quendi standards at it, but I can do a passable sunrise and sunset pair for people to look at, you don't have those here.

You should! People will understand that the drawings are meant to be illustrative, not proof you're a painter. Can you also send mental images, though? We often use that.

Probably, now that I know it's possible. And here is a lovely deep-purple late sunset.

Oooooh. That's stunning. I wish we had them here. Maybe the Valar can add them. Wow. It's beautiful.

She chuckles. I'll mention it next time I see Aulë. Sunrises are pretty great, too - and here's a sequence of sunrise memories, from the first hint of light through the last fading streaks of color.

He watches yearningly. Thank you so much, he says when she's done. That was one of the most beautiful moments I've experienced.

She grins. You're very welcome. I'm going to have to learn how to paint up to Quendi standards now, aren't I, she jokes.

It'd make people very happy! But only if it made you happy.

Well, making people happy makes me happy, so that's convenient. I do like painting, though, too.

You can get lots of lovely materials for it here, too!

Maybe you can show me where, sometime?

I'd be happy to. The main reason we don't go taking peoples' things in an unorganized way isn't property, it's convenience. It's nice to know that if you leave something somewhere in your house it'll still be there, it'd be distressing for things to vanish. It's not so much ownership as ability to predict access.

Huh. Kobolds just store all the tribe's things together, if I wanted to paint something I'd just go get what I needed from there and put it back when I was done for the next person to use. That also makes it easy to see what we have, and what we need to get more of or be careful of using up.

Ah. Perhaps the difference is that we won't run short of anything, and people might have different needs from things like paints - for example, storing them at the right temperature and only using clean brushes might be important to one person, while another would feel stifled if they had to take that much care. If they each have a set they can each use it as they want.

Nod. Different tribes are more or less strict about that kind of thing, but we always keep in mind that the things we're using will be used by others, not doing that would be rude. And it's... you can infer things that way, if you pay attention, it's kind of another way of keeping an eye on how the tribe is doing. Like, one of the ways I contributed to my old tribe was gathering medicinal plants, and knowing how much pain-relieving berries or stress-relieving leaves we were using was sometimes an important clue that something was going on that I'd want to know about.

I think I understand. But it's not that people'd be careless with collective property, it's that people care different amounts about things like how carefully paint is stored. To someone it might be really important and they spend weeks testing to find the perfect storage temperature and conditions and ways it'll be used. It wouldn't be fair for them to demand everyone else be that careful. I suppose without talking, monitoring usage might be necessary to know if anything's up. 

Yeah, I understand. Species difference, I think; caring that much about something like that would be unusual in a kobold. At a guess, if someone did their tribe would try to accommodate it, but it'd depend on the tribe and the circumstances; we are generally pretty good about making sure people have what they need to be happy, when we can, it's just that that'd be a strange thing to need and people might have trouble believing it.

It's a common need here, but perhaps only because it's possible. Maybe if it weren't artists would learn to be less picky. 

That's probably part of it, yeah. ...I wonder if keeping that in mind will help. It's been kind of nagging at me that there aren't any elderly or disabled people here; I understand why, but at home, keeping more vulnerable tribemates alive and well and happy is a point of pride for a tribe, it shows that they can work together well enough to make that happen. Looking around and not seeing anyone like that, my first instinct is to wonder what horrible thing I haven't noticed, and I keep having to remind myself that it's just different here. And now I can remind myself that your extra resources go to picky, amazing artists, instead.

He laughs. What a good outlook. Disability the Valar can help with, but they don't always because sometimes someone prefers not to be altered. We do have a few people who are blind or deaf. 

Huh, I wonder why someone would choose that. It's definitely good that they get the choice, though.