Their metaphor?

She forwards him the memory of the Ambarussa saying he talked people out of their souls and kept them somewhere cozy and sang to them.

He laughs delightedly. I suppose I can live with being preceded by that kind of reputation.

Good. I'm barely a restraining influence on my natural-born sibling, I wouldn't know where to start with yours.

I would threaten to sing out of key to their captive souls, obviously!

Pfft.

"Anywhere else you wanted to go today?"

"Not unless you wanted my help with the printing press thing."

"I do, very badly! What do you need for that?"

"...Um. Good question. I don't actually know how to build one, off the top of my head...it'll probably take more than one try to get right."

"What's the general idea?"

"Stamps in the shape of letters on uniform rectangular pieces that go into a frame, and you can assemble a frame to say anything using the stamps, and then ink it and stamp it on paper." She shows him what the university press looked like.

"Okay. The right people might be able to take it from there, but it'd be reasonable to do it yourself if you want credit."

"I'm not a craftsman, I wouldn't know how to actually create the individual pieces, but I can certainly help."

"I can put you in touch with some people who are, you can sort it out together!"

"That sounds fantastic."

So they walk back to the palace and several excitable engineers meet them there and Maitimo does introductions and then slips off to leave them to it.

Excitable engineers! Excellent. She can totally explain the printing press and learn things by watching things actually getting made.

They'll excitedly tug her off to their workshop for the day.

The books can wait, this is better.

They work all day! They sing while they work! They make substantial progress.

Wow, elves have such good singing voices.

She should hear her new brother-in-law.

She will have to do that. At some point. Engineering is more important.

This wins her approving nods. Someone brings them dinner. They work well into Laurelin's hours.