Hey, Dwarves who are paying for your upkeep are my only excuse to copy more than thirty of certain songs, Loki says. I'd like to be able to tell your family I drove a fair bargain and was not flagrantly cheated by a smith's cartel, is all.

You still haven't talked to Moryo. I'm sure that the field has a theoretical solution that's proven to be superior given various constraints. He projects something like laughter. And everyone ridiculed economics for being an absurdly impractical field of study.

I still haven't. I really should've, I was loitering for days, I think I've developed the habit of mentioning a thing and then forgetting about it because otherwise I'd be actively waiting on dozens of things, I mentioned you'd suggested it the visit after you did and then he never brought it up.

They're also not all at Mithrim all the time, a lot of the mining concerns are rather far afield. Unless you ask for something to reach everyone's ears, I wouldn't assume that it has.

...I can't remember if he was in the room when I said it. Oops. Another time. After I have dropped you off and then gone looking for Men.

It's not urgent. It sounds like my family has quite a lot on their plates.

Yeah, lots going on.

It is annoying because it means making my city nicer than theirs is going to require a lot of work. It is reassuring because it means they are all well.

Well, when you're done at least you'll have a really nice city. What are you going to call it?

I don't speak the local language yet. There's a love song, back home, with the line 'I built you a castle of promises, when you stepped there it turned into smoke', and I am terribly tempted to name it after the castle from that song but that would amuse no one but me and help nothing at all.

Oh dear. The Dwarves do speak Quendi languages - I'm not sure if they've got Quenya in particular - and seem to have hangups about other people learning their own. They put up with me since they can apparently tell that Allspeak is magic, though.

I am sure I'll pick up whatever they're speaking to me in.

I can give you a phrasebook if you turn out not to be mutually intelligible enough.

I still have a hard time understanding how this is a good use of your resources.

By certain accountings of the best use of my resources I should park in Doriath being just friendly enough that they keep feeding me, working on teleportation constantly. I like working on teleportation but I'm not that patient. Also, this approach would have me slowed down in the long run because I wouldn't have your brother's delightful spells, or your father working on my eidetic memory.

I forget that not everyone enjoys working on a single task without rest for decades on end. That's not even a Quendi thing, it's just my parents and most of their children.

Anyway, I do see some benefit into you charming and/or bribing Dwarves into building a city, that sounds awesome.

...Okay.

...something I'm missing?

No, I'm just not sure that's as much of an unambiguous bribe as a city is. Findekáno would come when called but I don't have as good a read on Macalaurë.

A few, yes.

Amusement. Which ones come to your mind?

Well, I'm sure he'd find it very emotionally conflicting especially since I have not told him the thing, you I'm less sure about but I'm hardly sure you wouldn't be put through the wringer over it however much better at looking stoic you are, and it seems like it would be politically complicated, and I'm not aware of any strong comparative advantage he has in city-building that makes it worthwhile except that he seems to like to build things when he can't think of anything else to do.