Thanks! Om nom foods. Fëanáro is playing with ambigrams. She explains the concept to Rúmil too.

Fëanáro, dear, you need to go ask a mathematician to lecture you on theory of symmetries, I think you'll need it for that.

Bella giggles. Sounds complicated.

Mathematics is one of the things I'm going to pick up once I can see or have a sufficiently good substitute, he says. As it stands I made no progress.

Maybe there's a divination that would work for you. Some of them allow looking at things without direct use of the eyes. She puts it on her list of spells to aim at once she knows enough to aim.

Thank you. Does your world have sophisticated mathematics? It was one of the things the Valar were most delighted to teach us, and it doesn't require any experiments.

We have math! I don't know that much of it, but it's a thing. You might have more or less or different math, no idea, couldn't necessarily tell by getting math lessons here.

Why do you need it for magic weapons? ...Why are magic weapons even a thing here, I had to get my knife reenchanted so it can't cut anybody.

The Valar gave them to us on the Great Journey from Cuivienen, Rúmil says. They were the first steel we forged. And Oromë, the Vala of the hunt, is the first one who found us. You obviously have to get them enchanted so they can't hurt anyone, otherwise what if you accidentally did?

Oh, hunting weapons. That wouldn't've occurred to me, mostly people don't hunt that much on my plane, we eat farmed animals.

That sounds like less bother, he says, but some people really like hunting and there are some animals that we have too many of and Oromë can keep an eye on it and make sure they do right by the animals.

Yeah, there's recreational hunting there too, it's just reaaaally not the first thing that comes to mind for 'weapon', let alone 'magic weapon'.

The most common enchantments are so you don't cause any pain.

That's a good idea. Where does the math come into it?

Telling metal what to do is really really complicated. You'd have to ask Mahtan for an explanation more detailed than that.

I'd do that pretty promptly if I were planning on researching magic weapons wizard-style but honestly it'll probably take a while to get to the top of the priority list.

And luckily we have all the time in the world!

Yep!

Fëanáro does not think so; he wants the letters settled on tonight so other people can be prodded into writing books. He drags Rúmil back down to sit with and write.

Bella helps as best she can and when there is nothing for her to do on that she practices with the alphabet extant.

"See you tomorrow, Fëanáro," Bella says, and she goes to Lórien for the night.

He goes to his room and keeps working. His parents come in for cuddles and a bedtime story and he tells them he is busy.

Bella has more experiments for Olórin to guinea pig in the morning!