"I'm going to fight all the bad gods," he says, "I just want to mostly invent things not fight them."

"Makes sense."

"We sing epics about things other than fighting, here."

"Our epics have other parts... but always some fighting."

"Even in your science fantasy stories?"

"Not usually told in the form of an epic. Novels, TV shows, comic books."

He shakes his head. "I can't wait until we have those things."

"Well, you're writing a novel. Unless it's going to be a lot shorter than it sounds and just be a short story. Comic books don't take magic either, just drawings and speech bubbles -" She osanwës the vague concept, hasn't read enough comics to use a specific example.

He nods. "I'll write a novel, then the other things. I need more people, or to finish the thing that lets me write faster."

"How's that going? It sounded complicated."

"It's going to take a while to get it to work. It's hard to have a thing that moves the paper the right amount without taking extra work."

"I wonder if you'll have that working before I have crystal balls."

He sets his jaw again. "Definitely."

"Probably," she admits. "Crystal balls are great, though, you can network them so you can talk to people who aren't anywhere nearby. And writing on them is faster than writing by hand even if you're quick at writing by hand."

"How'd'you write on a crystal ball?"

She sends it: a ballroom full of 'em, students frowning at their papers as they think them into existence in the images in the spheres. A scriber in the corner spitting out paper a page at a time.

"Cool. I'll be done faster but I don't know if mine will be quite as fast."

"Yeah, scribers are very quick. They only work on ether files though."

"Maybe I could do something like it," he says, chewing his lip. "I'm sure I could. I just don't see how."

"What, you mean without wizardry?"

"Yeah."

"I don't see how either, although I know the science fantasy word for it when somebody wants crystal balls in their setting but are trying to go low-magic; they're called 'computers'."

"I have too many projects I think I'm going to explode."

"Oh dear, that's no good. I'm not sure what to do about that. Maybe you will not be able to explode if hugged." Scoop.

He is still very very clingy. After a minute he starts rattling off the projects. "Write a book. Write a comic. Learn magic. Learn how to not make magic draining; get an epic commissioned about this. Come up with an alphabet for Quenya. Come up with a better alphabet for Pax to help the people who don't like reading. Invent a writing machine that goes really fast so I can write more books. Invent healing for Rúmil, maybe, if he wants it. Sit still and get to leave the palace and see all animals."