Well, she's just a little hesitant, among kobolds, children start with one parent, and they adopt more from there if they want them - I know Quendi don't do that, and I don't think Fëanáro is actually thinking of me that way, but I'm feeling pretty adopted, and I'd have a hard time not taking that seriously even if I wanted to. So there's that, at least.

Please do stick with him, even if he's difficult. It'll be hard on him if you don't.

I really don't think they're that difficult. That might be me being a Speaker, though, we often end up seeing the difficult bits of people.

And you haven't met any other Quendi children. And none of them have lost a parent, either.

Yeah. For someone who's lost a parent they seem to be doing pretty well, though, at least for the moment.

I am glad to hear it. For a long time he barely spoke to anyone and would run away if spoken to and when he did, he'd say awful things.

She winces, just slightly. Yeah, that happens. It must have been hard, if you'd never had to deal with something like that before.

It wasn't hard because of inexperience, it was just hard. Seeing him in so much pain and making it worse whatever we did -

She sends a memory of a comforting hug.

Thank you, dear. Vague distress at not having anything to call her. I am all right.

She knows better than that, but she's not going to press the point. Okay.

She withdraws from the scritching, gently, and smiles appreciatively at him.

He congratulates her again on the portals.

And she thanks him and nudges the adjacent tapestry to break the portal spell and heads back to the garden.

He's got tipping pitchers sort of working; he can scoop water with a water wheel on the other side moving the scoop but it's going to be tricky.

It's still really impressive for as little time as he's been at it, and she tells him so. Would it help to have the water wheel interacting with the scoop from a different position? She can totally add more portals to the setup here.

They can get it working! This is unsatisfactory, because it's not stunningly beautiful, but he claps his hands and bounces anyway.

Hooray!

Now that they know what it needs to have to work, it'll be much easier to figure out what it needs to have to work and also be pretty, they don't have to do both things at once. How does he want to prettify it?

He snaps at her in frustration because he has too many ideas and none of them are good enough.

This gets him: a hug.

What are the ideas, and why do you think they aren't good enough?

He sends mental images. 

Not pretty enough. They're stupid. No one will want them.

Those look really pretty to me, but I am just a kobold. Maybe we could find someone to help you learn how to make things pretty?

They'll think I'm stupid.

They'll think you're little. Nobody's going to be surprised at you not knowing how to do things at your age, and even adults don't know how to do everything - I'm going to be looking for someone to help me learn to paint, sooner or later, and I don't expect anyone to think badly of me for not already knowing how.

What if I don't learn very fast? What if I don't impress them?

Nothing, probably? A good teacher won't mind if you go at your own pace; that's the best way to learn.