"If you think there's a good reason for something there might really be," he admits.

"I can't think of any good reason you shouldn't go to Lórien now," she says, "but I don't always think of everything."

"Sure you do," he says. "Let's go. Nothing's dangerous anyway, this isn't your world."

"I'd still rather check. I can ask Rúmil instead of going straight to your father, though, he might know."

"Please?"

...She is briefly tempted.

He makes a very pleading face. "Please? Please?"

"You," she says, scooping him up and squeezing him, "are very cute, and not at all hard to love as far as I'm concerned. I'll ask Rúmil in case there is a non-obsolete reason and I don't think he will make a fuss about it if it turns out it really was just your mother being there which she now isn't and you not being able to leave which you now are; do you think he will?"

He's pouting. "I said please."

"Yes, but please doesn't always work. Wouldn't that be creepy if it did?"

He looks bewildered. "No."

"What, really? You don't think that would be awful if everybody could get everybody else to do anything they wanted by saying please? Please sit still through this audience, Fëanáro, please stay in the palace all the time forever...?"

"It'd be awful if people could do it to me!"

"Why would it only work on other people, if it worked?"

"Because I'm the crown prince?"

"But your father's the king."

"It'd probably also work for him," Fëanáro agrees reluctantly. "But it pretty much does, we're all supposed to do what he says."

"Anyway, it's possible with magic or subtle arts to make people do what you want. It's a terrible thing to do to people."

"You could just not invent those spells. Or keep them very secret."

"But you want 'please' to be one, at least when you say it."

"I just want to go to Lórien and get something sticky so we can teach everyone to read."

"I know. I want to bring you. But I can go get a plant to make me glue alone if there turns out to be a reason not to do that. It won't wreck the whole project." Huggles.

Snuggles. "I think most people would like it if everything happened how they wanted it to like that."

"Most people do what I say if I say it the way my father talks, but I think they're thinking 'oh, right, Fëanáro is my prince and I want to do what he asks so he can be a better one', not 'am I really sure that he can't have me dragged away from my family for doing something wrong' and so I do it all the time but I didn't think how someone might be scared."